SAO Another Vol 1 - Fatal Bullet
by AlexanRai
Summary: Alexan had narrowly evaded entering the death game "Sword Art Online". Fast forward three years later, and with his uneventful life, he finds himself almost wishing he could have. At least, until his childhood friend, Kureha, invited him to play a VRMMO called Gun Gale Online. Here, She and Alexan will be tied to the string of fate left by that floating castle in the sky.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Reunion in GGO

For the first time in a while, my alarm clock had not awoken me on a weekday. With a groggy yawn, I pushed myself out of bed. With nothing to do, I turned on my computer instinctively before going to glance out my window. I could feel the heat of outside slip past the glass, and brightness was near blinding since my eyes hadn't fully adjusted from the darkness of sleep.

"I should be more excited, huh?" I said to myself. After all, it was the first day of summer. "But, my only problem is, what am I going to do?" I continued to glance out my window as my eyes became adjusted to the light. There was hardly a cloud in the sky, and I had become warm from standing in the light for so long.

I looked away from the window as I sighed, and headed outside of my room. From brushing my teeth to eating breakfast, I took care of all of the mundane things that could be done in the morning.

My mother greeted me in the kitchen, "Morning, Alexan," she smiled softly at me. "Did you sleep well?"

"Yeah, I did." I rolled my shoulders, before heading back to my room.

"Oh! Can you go out later and pick up some stuff for me at the store?" She called out to me.

"Yeah, of course," After all, I don't think I was going to have much else better to do any time soon, considering I didn't really have anyone to do anything with. I had moved to Tokorozawa from basically the opposite side of the country, and I had failed to really make any acquaintances, much less friends.

I went into my room and took a seat in my chair. With a flick of my mouse, the dual monitors came on. I ended up sitting there for a while, completely unsure what to do. I ended up wasting most of my time just watching videos and the like, though, it didn't take long until I had run out of things I would want to bother watching.

I sighed, looking through the internet, until I found an article on Alfheim Online. I had tried playing the game before, in an attempt to build a new circle for myself, even if it was just an online circle, though, I didn't run into much luck. Or rather, I guess I couldn't bring myself to put myself out there, even in the virtual world.

I groaned as I spun in my chair until my gaze fell upon my Amusphere. I hadn't really been able to use the thing, unlike my NerveGear- to an extent. I thought back to when I participated in SAO's closed Beta.

I picked up my Amusphere, "Who knows how different things would have been if I got home five minutes earlier that day?" I muttered to myself. Honestly, it was a thought that had come to me recently lately. Ever since I had moved here, I couldn't help but wonder if dealing with this new life would've been easier if I had logged into Sword Art Online that day.

I sighed. Part of me knew, that frankly, I just wasn't looking at that situation seriously enough. But, the other part of me, honestly didn't care. Because if I had gone in there, and actually made it out as a survivor. Well, I surely that means I would've found at least a few people that I could've called friend, that I would probably still be with me now.

"But, it's been a year since the SAO incident, so, what's the point in thinking about it now?" I was talking to my Amusphere, I guess…

I shook my head and placed it down on my dresser, where I had found it, "I guess I'll go pick up that stuff for Mom," I left my room yet again, and soon after I left the house after confirming all the things that she wanted me to get.

The walk there wasn't anything special, nor was getting the groceries. Pork, soy sauce, among other things before I headed to the checkout. It was very straightforward and plain, much like most of my time spent here.

I left the store with everything in hand. Looking towards the sky, I could see that the sun was going to set soon. The day was almost over, and I couldn't help but wonder, was every day of summer going to be like this?

I turned my attention back to the path in front of me, where I saw a group of guys. They walked closely to one another and spoke loudly. I couldn't quite make out what any of them were saying, though, they seemed to be having a good time, being rough with each other.

I couldn't help but keep glancing at them the entire time that they were walking, until they eventually passed me, "Yeah, if only." I muttered to myself.

I left the bag in the Kitchen once I returned home, and headed straight back up to my room. The natural light had dimmed a bit, and rather than turning on the light, I simply just flicked my mouse again, allowing my monitors to brighten the room up a little bit. I took a seat, looking back towards my Amusphere.

"And to think I used to solo games without any issue…" I trailed off, getting lost in thought until I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket.

I took out my phone, and was immediately confused. The number I saw, I didn't recognize, but area code indicated it wasn't too far away from me. Somewhere in Tokyo, if I was right. Looking closer, it was a text.

 _Alexan? It's Kureha, do you remember me?_

I raised my eyebrows. I hadn't heard from her in years. We knew each other back when we were younger. But, she moved away from me about six or seven years ago. We managed to talk for some time after that, but, eventually we stopped talking almost completely.

 _Long time, no see… Or text I guess? Lol. Anyways, what's up?_

 _Haha, yeah, sorry about that. But, I was wondering, would you mind playing a game with me? A VRMMO, actually._

 _A game?_

Thinking back on it, even though Kureha never really did that kind of stuff, but, she was definitely the type to immerse herself into another place. I guess it was only a matter of time until she picked up a game.

 _Gun Gale Online. I started playing not all that long ago, and for some reason you just came to mind. So would you consider it?_

At that moment, it hit me, this was exactly what I've been waiting for. All of my friends from back home didn't really keep up with me, which went to show that there wasn't much keeping us together in the first place. But, now I had a shot at actually getting what I wanted.

 _Yeah, actually. I'd be more happy to play a game with you._ (＾▽＾)

 _Really?!_ O(≧∇≦)O _Can we start tomorrow? Maybe at around 1pm?_

 _Sounds good to me, I should have the game downloaded tonight. Is it free?_

 _It is… Though, there's a subscription fee after the first month… But, you can pay it with ingame currency, so it should be fine!_

 _Is that so? Then you better be ready play a whole lot with me to help with that._

 _Don't you worry! So, I'll be waiting for you!_

 _I'll be there._

It took me the longest while to realize that I had the biggest, dumb grin on my face. Even after all this time, Kureha could a a smile on my face.

"Gun Gale Online, huh?" I placed my phone down beside my Amusphere and turned towards my computer. I went to download this game my childhood friend recommend to me. "Big surprise." I muttered to myself. "It has guns in it."

Honestly, shooters weren't exactly my cup of tea, but beggars can't be choosers. Though, despite that, I ended up researching the gameplay from top to bottom all night, until I eventually went to bed. I ended up falling asleep much easier than I thought I would've. Probably because I burnt myself out with all of my "research".

So, surely enough, the next day came, and that's when all of my excitement kicked in. I thought about just hopping in early, just to see the game, but I wanted meet Kureha the moment I went in. So, I stayed patient all throughout the morning, until it was finally time.

At around 12:40 I got a text from Kureha.

 _I'm logging on now, I'll see you in a bit?_

 _I'll be right behind you._

Again, I had a stupid grin on my face as I went to grab my Amusphere and put it on. I flopped into my bed as I closed my eyes.

"Link. Start." And just like that, I was pulled from the real world into the virtual one. My consciousness was brought into a void of soft blue light, and then, an avatar appeared in front of me. It seemed that this was a character creation screen, which was surprisingly new for VRMMOs outside of SAO. I remember when I had tried Alfheim, I didn't have any choice in what I looked like aside from my race.

While I was there, SAO came to mind naturally. Apparently everyone trapped in the game had looked exactly like they did in real life, because of NerveGear being able to see essentially your entire head.

 _Welcome, Alexan!_

So, for some reason, I decided to say "Why not?" and make my character's face look exactly like my own, along with including my caramel skin tone. About 170cm tall. White hair would've given good contrast and made me look cool, and making it spikey would fit the game's aesthetic. I decided to make the eyes my favorite color: green. And just like that, I had what was literally just a fantasized version of myself.

After a quick confirmation message, I loaded into the world that was known as Gun Gale Online. I looked down at my hands and balled them up. I embraced the feeling that came with being inside VR.

I took a deep breath and looked around, I had spawned in a gritty, futuristic city. The color pallet consisted of metal and rock. I could see countless people, walking about and conversing.

"So, this is SBC Glocken, huh?" I rolled my shoulders as I took my first steps.

"That's right," A girl in a pink battle coat approached. "Eh, what's this?" She got closer, really close. So close that if I didn't already figure out who it was, that I would've been beyond uncomfortable.

"K-Kureha?" I stepped back just a bit. Her face was directly in front of mine. My eyes couldn't escape her, whether they landed on her bright blue eyes, her fiery pink hair, or her pale skin.

And then I started blushing.

At that moment, she pulled away from me, "Right!" She smiled at me, "Although, I haven't seen in you such a long time, your avatar reminds me so much of you. Did you really?…"

"Well, how about you?" I looked up and down at her, "Your character reminds me of you too."

Kureha began to pout, "Well, I'd been thinking about inviting you to play for a while. So when the character customization update came out, I thought that this would be most convenient." She twirled her hair around her finger.

I smiled at her, "Alright, alright. I guess it doesn't really matter either way." A pop-up appeared at my side, asking me if I wanted to do the tutorial. "Oh, I should probably…" I reached out to hit yes, but Kureha immediately grabbed my hand. I looked at her, puzzled.

"Oh, ah, you don't wanna take the tutorial…" She laughed nervously.

"Eh, is it that bad? Is there a bug with it or something?" I blinked at her.

She glanced off to the side, "Oh, it's bad alright… I still get dreams about that woman…"

"Dreams? Woman? …Kureha?"

She looked back to me with a big smile on her face, "Don't worry, don't worry. I'll be the best tutorial you've ever seen!"

For some reason, that just made me believe I was about to receive the worst tutorial in my life.

"Eh?" Kureha frowned. "Why are you making that face?

"Don't worry, Sensei," I waved her off. "So, where does my tutorial start?"

"It starts at the store! After all, you can't shoot anything without a gun, now can you?" She grabbed my hand. She had made an obvious yet, solid point. "And you can try guns in NPC shops for free, so you don't have to worry about getting anything you don't like!" She looked back at me as she began pulling me forward. "And hopefully we'll be able to do something about those clothes too!"

"Eh? You're not planning on dressing me up or something, are you?"

"Maybe, maybe! But don't worry, not until you're geared up."

Well, that sure didn't make me feel better. What were the chances she was gonna dig into her own pocket to put something weird on me? They weren't high, right?

Regardless, we ended up at the gun store and there were so many options that it blew my mind. I could tell the difference between a submachine gun and a pistol, or a assault rifle and a sniper rifle, but just the sheer amount of numbers was a bit much to deal with.

"I… have absolutely no idea where to start." I told her, looking through the menus of guns.

"Well, it's not as bad as it seems, a newbie can only use so many of guns there," She told me. "So, that narrows down your choices for now."

Now that I looked, I noticed the further I went down the menu, the more choices that were grayed out. Weapons had stat restrictions.

Then it hit me, every VRMMO came from the Seed, meaning all of the stats I had in Alfheim would carry over here.

"Hold on a second," I closed out the store menu and opened up my character status menu. I had dozens of points at my disposal, though, it seemed upgrading a single skill cost ten per point. "So, if I were gunman in real life…"

"Wait, you're not level one?" Kureha looked at me surprised. "Well, I guess that helps, in the long run. Though, now, you have a lot more options than I thought you would."

"Yeah," I told her. "I actually played ALO for a little bit, but… Well, I didn't have anyone else to play with."

"ALO, huh?" Kureha paused for a moment. "Those kinds of games always seemed to be your thing, though, funnily enough if it weren't for you, I might've decided to do the same with this game." She put her hands behind her head, looking up a bit.

"You don't have anyone else in this game?" I looked directly towards her. Kureha was the kind of person that after some time, could get people to gravitate towards her.

"I've been in a lot of Squadrons- Guilds. But, I just couldn't stick in any of them. So, you came to mind, and I thought, 'why not give it a shot?'" She looked towards me.

I finished allocating my stats, then Kureha got closer. She looked at the numbers curiously.

"...Is something wrong?" I asked her. Were my stats that bad?

"An AGI build huh? I took you more for the glass cannon type." She told me. "But, no, as long as you can work with your stats, I don't think really think any set up is particularly bad."

"I guess you could say I'm working for more of a 'duelist' build." I told her.

She smiled at me, "Well, 'Duelist-kun', lets work on finding you that weapon, yeah?"

So then, we ended up at the shooting range for the store. First up? Sniper Rifles. The idea of a gun generally being able to take it's target out in one shot definitely sounded good on paper.

I aimed down the scope, and held my breath. I waited inbetween my heartbeats, and I took my shot. Though, I didn't see a bullet hole appear anywhere on the target. Regardless, I shook my head, took a deep breath, and tried again. The gun fired, but again, the bullet was nowhere to be seen.

I fired again. Then again. Until finally Kureha said, "DEX is your second highest stat… yet, you're awful with Snipers."

I groaned.

"Well, that's fine!" She told me, "You can't really use all that AGI lugging around that heavy thing anyways!" She pointed to a gun under the submachine gun class. "Here, this is pretty similar to the gun I use."

I materialized that gun next and aimed at the target. At first, my shots were landing on the target, but only at first. The imbalance of the gun made my aim go all over the place, I think I ended up just plain shooting the ceiling at one point.

Kureha simply put a hand on my shoulder, "Well, that's fine. Both of us using similar weapons could be advantageous sometimes! Let's try assault rifles next!"

The assault rifle, honestly wasn't a much different story from the submachine gun. Granted this time, I managed not to shoot the ceiling.

"Well… There's pistols." Kureha said sheepishly.

"And so many of them," Even with my relatively low stats, there were so many I could use. "Glock, Glock, oh look, another Glock."

"Ah, yeah, that's pretty much the newbie brand for pistols," She told me. "Try a .45, since it seems you won't be using any traditional primaries anytime soon…"

".45… So, let's try…" I decided to pick the G41. I aimed down the sights, and fired. Probably averaging about two shots until I emptied the clip. Every shot had not only landed on the target, but weren't very far off from the center of chest, which was where I was aiming.

"You have hope! Honestly, I was pretty worried for a second," Kureha let out a sigh of relief.

"It definitely works, but let's try something that might be just a tad less unweildy." I went back into the menu and grabbed a G34.

"Unwieldy… I guess you could say that. Smaller calliber bullets also provide more penetrative power. But, you do lose out on upfront damage."

I aimed down the sights, and this time, easily getting in 3 shots a second, my accuracy rivaled my results with the G41.

"A knack for pistols, huh? But, you could probably make that work with your build…"

"The light weight of the pistols let me abuse my AGI, and my DEX makes up for the accuracy and damage deficit that pistols usually have." I reloaded the gun before pulling out another one from the menu, holding one in either hand.

I sent out a barrage of bullets on the target. While my overall accuracy did suffer, against any real enemy, my DPS easily would've still almost doubled.

"Your game knowledge… is a whole lot better than I expected." Kureha looked at me in awe.

I reloaded both pistols before realizing what she had said, "Well," I laughed a bit, "I did do a lot of research last night. I was actually pretty excited to come on." I rubbed the back of my head. "I can get pretty out of hand when it comes stuff like this."

"Mmm… Well, it let's me know you really want to be here!" She told me, "Because honestly, I'd feel pretty bad if I were actually bothering you."

I looked back to her, showing her my dumb looking grin for the first time, "I think I found my guns for now." I went to stand directly in front of her, "Let's get started, yeah?"

She looked at me. I could tell something came to her mind, but, I wasn't sure what. But, she smiled at me with content, "Yeah, let's go."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: But, it's a Gunfight!

It had been two months since that first fateful day Kureha and I had spent in GGO, and ever since, I've had more than enough of an easy time keeping up with the subscription fee. And, obviously, I had been enjoying my time, even during our down time when we spent our free time in one of the many bars in GGO.

"Kureha!" I called out.

She suddenly jumped up, "Eh?" She looked back to me, "Jeez, Alexan." She looked back at the dartboard, trying to take aim.

"Isn't there going to be a tournament coming soon?" I asked her.

"Tournament? You mean BoB?" She threw the dart. I wasn't sure what exactly she landed on, but it was far from a bullseye.

"Well, that is also something for me to consider, but, no. Isn't something going to be held with the next update?" I asked her.

"Ah…" She threw another dart. It was definitely closer to the center that time, "Well, that's not really a tournament. It would kind of be like a battle royal. Dungeon Battle Grounds, DBG." She told me.

"Right," I nodded, before walking beside her and taking a dart for myself. "I read that it will have some of the new rare items coming in."

"That makes sense," She said as I threw a dart at the board. It landed on the opposite of the board from Kureha's last throw. "So, why do you want to know?"

"I've been thinking about replacing my SCAR-H for something that suits my style more. It's gonna be my first huge PvP encounter." I told her.

"Well, you still suck with SMGs," To which I scoffed in response. "And I don't see you making much else work, since, you insist on not using shotguns."

"I just find them clunky to use. That and when I'm using a gun, standing two meters from my target kind of goes against my instincts." I threw another dart at the board. This time I wasn't even close, "So, no thank you."

"Well, then, what are you going to use?" She looked towards me, skeptical.

"Well, I came up with the idea that maybe I shouldn't use a gun?" I looked towards her before swiping my fingers through the air and bringing up my quest log. I swiped over a quest called "The Berserker" over to her, sharing the quest.

"Not a gun?" Kureha looked at the quest. "It's to clear a dungeon… But, then what drops in the dungeon?"

"Well, I don't know about the drops, but, look at the quest reward." I pointed down towards the bottom of the quest page.

"A Masamune?" She blinked a few times before realizing exactly what the weapon was, "You're going to use a photon blade, of all things?"

"I was just going to buy one at first to try it out, since shooting ranges don't exactly take swords into account." I turned around and took a seat at one of the many soft chairs in the bar. "But, they're so expensive, and if it turned out it was just going to be a huge waste of credits, that would've been a real bummer…"

"I mean, there's a reason that no one uses them," Kureha told me.

"And I'm sure there's a reason, if not many, that no one uses dual pistols as their primary," I materialized one of my Glock 34s in my hand, twirling it about. "But, here I am."

Kureha sighed, "Jeez. But, honestly, if I had to bet on anyone being able to use the things, I guess it would be you."

"Then it's settled!" I stood up. "You're clearing this dungeon with me today!"

"Alright, alright," She walked over to me with a smile on her face. "But now you owe me one."

"Well, you know I'm always more than willing to help you, Kureha." I dematerialized my G34.

I could see a red tint take over her face, "You need to watch what you say, sometimes…" She muttered.

Though, at the time, I didn't quite get what she meant when she said that, "Huh?"

"Jeez… Don't worry about it. Just know, I'll hold you to that!" She crossed her arms.

"Yes, yes." I nodded happily.

Her expression seemed to soften, "C'mon, let's go!"

We left the bar and headed into the Abandoned City area. At first, all you would be able to see are plains covered with countless rock formations, but, after just a little while, you'd be able to see the ruins of the City. The decaying skyscrapers continued to stand tall, despite having withstood the forces of nature. The roads with cracked and overcome with vegetation. Countless mechs roamed the streets.

"This place gets a lot of player hunters around this time," Kureha noted.

"Really?" I pulled out one of my G34s from its holster and start twirling it in my hand. "So, that should also mean a lot players farming monsters will be here too."

"So, as long as we keep a sharp eye out, we should be able to avoid any crazy fights." Kureha rested her Uzi on her shoulder. "So, where exactly is the dungeon?"

"It's almost directly east of the entry point of the area," I looked over towards that direction, seeing the slope of a mountain divide us from the dungeon. "It looks like we're going to have to go into the city and loop around, though."

"So, we can't really avoid fighting a bunch of monsters on the way, and our chances of encountering players are that much higher, too." Kureha sighed.

"Well, it's nothing that we haven't dealt with a hundred times," I cocked my pistol.

Kureha looked towards me, before becoming more lively once more, "Right. Let's go."

We advanced into the city, taking down most of the NPCs in our way. Headshot after headshot by my hand hit almost every target. Despite me using pistols, it was actually quite easy to land them. The game's AI was predictable enough for me to do so consistently.

Meanwhile, Kureha mowed down everything in sight with her SMG, and whenever it came to a large clump of enemies, I'd let her take charge with her rocket launcher and watch anything in the vacinity get blown to smithereens.

We did encounter some players, two farming groups, though, nothing eventful happened. Kureha and I didn't particularly care for PvP, especially not with the dungeon ahead, and more farming groups usually weren't equipped to deal with PvP situations, so we just went on our merry way, all the way up until we hit the dungeon.

"This place shouldn't be too hard for us. I'll take on high priority targets with my SCAR," I said, switching to it.

"And I'll do the same," Kureha said as she readied her launcher. "Or wipe out and clumps of enemies I see."

We entered the dungeon, and did just as practiced, rinse and repeat. I typically used my SCAR to take out any sniper class NPCs, as they were the easiest high threat targets to identify immediately. A single headshot was all it would take from me. There would only be two or three in every pack of enemies at most, so I was able to take them all out before we would start taking fire. Even then, by that point, Kureha would've been destroying them all we her launcher. Then, with what would remain, I'd switch to my pistols and her to her SMG as we would easily clean up whatever else was left.

It didn't take all that long until we were outside the boss room. I stretch and rolled my shoulders, "Almost done, we just have to get rid of this guy now."

"A giant melee boss, huh?" Kureha looked over the quest once more. "So, all we need to do is keep our distance."

"Might be easier said than done," I told her, as I reloaded my guns and checked my ammo count. "This should be more than enough, but, I'll stock back up when we get to Glocken."

"Well, we have guns, and we're both pretty effective at mid range as well," Kureha told me.

"Well, yeah, but if it were that easy, then it wouldn't be worthy being called a boss. It'll definitely have countermeasures in place in order to close the distance between us." I cocked both pistols.

"Yeah… I guess that would make sense." Kureha frowned.

"But our range advantage isn't fully negated, I'm sure we'll just need to keep an eye on his movements," I told her.

"Your game sense really is something, Alexan…" She readied her SMG.

"I've played tons and tons of games before, so assumptions like this are pretty much second nature for me," I looked over to her, though, her eyes didn't meet mine.

"You've played ALO before, right?" Kureha's mind seemed to be somewhere else.

"Yeah, it was technically my first VRMMO, even though, I didn't stay on it very long." I combed my fingers through my hair.

"Technically?" She seemed to have been taken away from whatever was on her mind. She looked back at me.

"Well, I did play the beta for SAO. I almost ended up playing the real thing too."

Her eyes widened. I'm sure she was baffled, "Really?" She seemed to regain her composure. "Well, I'm glad you didn't. Otherwise, I may not have been able to play with you now."

That comment had caught me off guard, but, it put a grin on my face. "Yeah, I wouldn't rather be anywhere else."

"Jeez…" She looked off to the side.

The question of "Would have I been better off in SAO?", no longer came to mind. The part of me that craved something, anything to happen to me had begun to fade away. No, in fact, whenever I looked at Kureha, I knew that part of me already had faded away. I was content.

My grin had turned into a soft smile. I placed my hand on Kureha's shoulder, "You ready?"

She looked back at to me and put on a determined face, "Let's go!"

We entered the boss room, which was was littered completely with debris of automation mechs. It looked like most of them had been completely crushed. Upon glancing at the walls, we could see holes and slash-like marks that took entire chunks out of the concrete. The room was dimly lit, making it difficult to immediately point out where the boss was.

Then, two glowing red sources of light popped out from the near-darkness. A humanoid figure of about 3 meters tall rose from the debris. The lights flickered on, revealing a mech with an very sleek design, as if it weren't build to fight on the ground at all. Although, it was was covered in rust and seemed to have battle damage.

Needless to say, when it suddenly sprouted "wings", that made it all the much more apparent. It had rockets attached to those wings, and it seemed to have tried to use them to gain altitude, but it was to no avail.

It was at that moment, that it had spotted us. It took on an agressive stance as it's red eyes gleamed and it let out a low pitched frequency which shook the dungeon to it's core. It was almost as though it were screaming. Then, condensed light shot out from it right arm, creating a blade. It whipped said blade through the air as it's name and healthbar became visible.

 _AGMA Saitama_

"Kureha!" I aimed both of my pistols at the mech.

"Right!" She aimed her SMG at it as well.

Simultaneously, Kureha and I fired at it, as it used it's rockets to propel itself towards us. I managed to dash out of the way and Kureha did the same by rolling. The robot slammed into the wall, staggering itself.

At that moment, Kureha and I unloaded on it. I managed to empty 3 clips worth of ammo before it got back up. It immediately made another dash, only for me this time. With a backstep, I managed to avoid any damage, since this time it didn't overshoot the distance, but it began swinging it's sword at me. I was forced to stay on the defensive, but, whenever it ended an animation, I made sure to get in several shots before playing back again.

"Graviton Shot!" I heard Kureha call out. A skill exclusive for launcher users allowed them to shoot out what was literally a black hole, allowing them to forcibly attract targets to a single point. Despite being a boss, the mech succumbed to the skill and was dragged away from me.

I pulled a plasma grenade from my belt and tossed it at the boss. It seemed that Kureha had the same idea. Before either grenade could even hit the ground, Kureha fired a real round from her launcher. Upon coming into contact with the boss, three explosions happened simultaneously.

It let out yet another low frequency roar, before using its jets to launch itself out of Kureha's Graviton Shot and went right for her. She used her Defense matrix skill and slammed her palm on the ground as a bubble formed around her, completely negating any damage that she would've taken.

I aimed at the boss' back, particularly at the wings and emptied the clips in my guns. With almost every shot it staggered, meaning I had found it's weak point. I quickly reloaded and used Instant Unload, which let me empty the entire clips of both guns again in just under a second.

The mech fell to its knees, from taking so much damage within a short period of time. Kureha came out of her defense matrix, and with her SMG in hand, fired as many shots as she could at its head, which was most likely its other weak spot.

The mech fell backwards, comepletely knocked over as a result. Kureha held up a grenade, signaling me to take out another one as well. We both tossed them at the vulnerable boss as she took cover. After just a few seconds, there was a spectacular explosion as the boss' health depleted completely.

Shortly after, the "Quest Clear" notification came up for me and I was awarded a Masamune G2. I quickly replaced my SCAR-H with it. Upon handling it, I realized whether the blade came out or not was based on player mental input, and not anything physical. The light that came out of was an intense red color.

"Well, congratulations on your new weapon," Kureha walked up to me with a smile.

"It feels a whole lot different from what I expected," I told her, as I swung it around.

"What, were you expecting it to feel like an actual sword?" She placed her hand on her hip.

I blinked for a few seconds, pausing. Honestly, I kind of was. I was expecting the sword to actually have weight and balance to it, as if it were a real metal blade, "Maybe I've played too many fantasy games."

"I also got one, since you gave me the quest too. The XP and credits are nice, but I don't think I can do much with sword," She opened up a trade menu with me and put it in the window. "So, you may as well have it. Maybe you'll figure something out."

 _Muramasa G7 x1_ _  
_ _Confirm?_

I looked at the trade menu for just a moment, "Wait, this is slightly different from the one I got." I accepted the trade.

"Different? How so?" Kureha tilted her head at me.

"The one in my hand is a G2…" I unequipped it and equpped the G7. Then, I saw that when the blade calm out, it was green.

"Oh… So it looks like the number has to do with the color." Kureha noted.

"So, I guess it doesn't really matter, huh?" I swung around the blade, it definitely didn't feel any different from the other.

"Well, for what it matters, I think green suits you more." She told me.

"Yeah? Well, then, it's settled," I twirled the sword around once more before "sheathing" it and putting it on my belt. "I'll use the green one."

"Let's get out of here then! This has been a pretty good run, so we might as well cash in everything we got." Kureha was already rushing for the exit.

I smiled at her, before taking her lead, "Right."

We left the dungeon, and of course, we had to fight our way back through the city. Though, we noticed that none of the players we saw beforehand were out. In fact, we hadn't seen any other players. Though, we didn't mind that particularly.

"You always find a way to make things interesting, don't you?" Kureha asked me.

"Huh?" I looked towards her.

She stopped walking, "Of all weapons, you actually wanted to try the most unusable in the game and make it your secondary."

"Well, the only other thing aside from pistols I can use are semi-automatic rifles. But, even those totally kill my pace." I placed my hands behind my head.

"So, you just want to run at mach speed towards everything, huh?"

"Yeah, that's the idea! Move so fast that they can't hit you, but you can hit them harder than they would if they could!"

"Talk about guerilla warfa-"

Suddenly, a gunshot. The sound rang through my right ear. I immediately recognized it as a heavy caliber weapon, a sniper rifle.

"Kureha!" I leaped onto her, pushing and pinning her to the ground. The remains of the building to the left of us suddenly had a huge chunk taken out of it, and I could hear people moving in the distance.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Calvary, Meet Artillery

"Kureha, we've got to move!" I told her. She had stared blankly at me until I said those words to her. Then, we saw a bullet line, aimed right for my head. The shot went off, right as I pushed myself off of her. Another bullet slammed through the concrete beside us.

"Alexan!" She called out as she scrambled to her feet.

"Kureha," I took out the photon sword and activated it, "Stay behind me and provide cover fire, alright?"

"R-right!" She readied her SMG.

I took off, headed in the direction of the of the gunfire. Judging from the timing of the gunshot until the bullet reached us, who ever was sniping us was well over a thousand meters from us. Which likely meant they had back up which was less than half that distance from us.

"Kureha, after 100 meters, use Graviton Shot, and send it as far as you possibly can!"

"Is the sniper really that close?" She asked as she switched to her launcher.

"No, but their friends almost definitely are." I told her.

Then I saw a bullet line, lined up exactly to my head. Now, was the perfect time to test just how much a photon sword was worth. With the help of the bullet line, I could probably see exactly when the bullet would've hit me. I swung upwards and the beam collided with the bullet perfectly, completely vaporizing it. The sniper still hadn't moved, which begged me to wonder what they were thinking?

"Kureha, do it now!" I told her. She followed my direction, as the Graviton round went right over me. About 200 meters down, it formed the blackhole and the shouts of players could be heard.

Kureha instantly fired a round from her launcher at the blackhole. We could see several "dead" signs pop up upon explosion. As we closed in towards the blackhole, it dispersed, and two more gunners came out from cover.

I could already see the bullet line fall on me. Once gunfire started, it seemed most likely that were both using assault rifles, one automatic and the other semi-auto.

Again, I read the bullet lines and tried to to deflect any bullets that came my way. At first, my health bar was getting chipped away at far faster than I anticipated. I popped a first aid kit with my off hand in order to make some of my health.

I needed to read the bullet lines faster. No, I needed to read the shooters better. I needed to read their guns better.

Then, I was able to find their patterns. By looking at everything, and balancing my reactivity with proactivity, I began to deflect more and more of their shots.

Upon finding my rythym, my movements became less and less rigid, and I even began to make use of my acrobatic skill, incorporating flips and turns into my . As a result, their fire became more eradic as they attempted to keep landing shots on me, but I needed to stay calm. The point wasn't to deflect every bullet, but every bullet that could hurt me. Even against a full-auto weapon, it felt natural.

It seemed the both of them took cover while they reloaded, but, I had already closed the distance between us. I jammed my blade through the piece of stray, decayed building that the automaitc user hid behind. Without very much time, I saw confirmation that he was dead.

The other one didn't seem particularly happy that his friend has died, so he rushed at me, only to be greeted by a shoulder bash from Kureha, which sent him flying. He tumbled across the ground as he took what must've been at least half of her clip.

Kureha, seemed to be exhausted, "You…" She looked up at me before walking over to me to pound on my chest, "You idiot! You could've been completely wiped there! What were you thinking?!"

I laughed nervously, "Sorry, I guess I got caught up in the moment."

"Well, if nothing else, I guess now we know that thing really can work for you, huh?" Her gaze fell on my photon sword.

"Best investment I've made in a video so far!" I grinned at her.

She couldn't help but laugh, "Well, I'm glad you feel that way. Truly, you really are something…"

"I'll have to agree with that one," A voice from behind me spoke. When we looked to see who it was, we saw a girl with bright blue hair, in a green battlesuit holding a massive gun, probably an anti-material rifle.

I raised my eyebrows, "Wait a second…"

She sighed, with an apologetic smile on her face, "Yeah, I was the sniper. But, it seemed that you guys wiped the rest of my…" She paused for a second. "…Party."

"Oh, well sorry about that," I rubbed the back of my head. "Well, not really. But, you know."

"Well, I was only going on a trial run with those guys." She let the rifle rest on the ground, and used it as a support. "They have an easy enough time picking on farming groups, but once you throw a couple people with live ammo guns they seem to fall apart." She glanced towards the general spots where they all died before her eyes met mine, "Do you guys PvP often?"

"Well," Kureha began. The girl's eyes moved over to her instead, "No, we don't really go out of our way for open world PvP."

"That's pretty amazing, considering how well you guys worked together. Granted, the people you took out weren't all that impressive, but in what was essentially six versus two situation, you guys held up really well. So, I think that counts for something."

Kureha seemed a bit confused as how to take that, "Ah, thank you?" She looked to me, "But, it's because of this guy's good game sense."

"Game sense, huh?" The girl seemed to be thinking about something, but whatever it was, she dismissed it. "Well, how about we go out and get a drink? I suppose that's the least I could do for bothering you guys."

"Sounds good to me," I said. I looked back to Kureha, "How about you?"

"You know," Kureha walked over to the blue-haired girl. "This is my first time seeing another girl in a while!"

She blinked before smiling at Kureha, "My name is Sinon." She held her hand out to Kureha.

"I'm Kureha," She took her hand, and shook it. She jammed her thumb back in my direction. "The show-off is my friend, Alexan."

I raised my hand, greeting Sinon properly, "Yo!"

Sinon laughed softly, "Yeah, I can tell he's the 'interesting' one."

I simply grinned, "I'll take that as a compliment!"

The three of us headed back to SBC Glocken. We had agreed to head to the bar that Kureha and I were at earlier. Although, on our way there we had encountered a party that seemed to recognize Sinon. One of them was in very cowboy-like attire, while the rest of them were in much more gritty, almost gangster themed clothing.

"Sinon," The cowboy exclaimed. "You made it out alive?" He actually seemed genuinely surprised.

Sinon nodded, "I did. After all of you went down, I determined there was nothing more I could do. So, I guess you could say I just decided to surrender." She shrugged it off. "So, now, I'm hanging out with these guys."

"Wh-what? Then what about us?!" He asked her.

She sighed, "Dyne, I won't lie, at first it didn't seem too bad. But, if you guys legitimately can't handle PvP when the enemy party has more than one live-ammo guns, I think I'll skip out on the Squadron invitation."

Another one of them stepped forwards, towards Sinon, "Hey, c'mon Sinoichi…" He automatically gave off very creepy vibes. But, Kureha had stepped in between him and Sinon.

"If you guys really, really need another man to fill up a spot, then maybe I'll consider it if I'm free," Sinon told them. She seemed mildly annoyed at this point. "But, for now, I'm gonna be with these two." She walked ahead. Kureha and I quickly followed after.

"So, that was what I was dealing with, huh?" I looked back at the them, "I kinda see why you weren't sure if you should've been impressed."

"Dyne, isn't a bad guy," Sinon began. "Though, the rest of them… I'm not too fond of. I guess they're not particularly bad people either, but, at the end of the day, I guess I'm better off not hanging out them." She wore a scarf along with her battlesuit, I had only now just noticed that since she was tugging at it absent-mindedly.

"So, you wanted to join a PvP squadron?" Kureha asked.

"Not neccessarily. But, I figured if I wanted to get stronger…" Sinon trailed off.

"Stronger?" Kureha tilted her head at her.

Sinon shook her head, "I just want to get better at GGO. But, I don't think I would get very far with them. They just don't have…" She looked back at me, "The game sense."

"Also, one of them seemed really creepy! I felt like he was going to do something weird to you…" Kureha's scratched her cheek.

Sinon laughed softly, "Well, then, I'm glad I have you to protect me, Kureha."

They both laughed, and it seemed like they were both already great friends. This must've been what it was like to see to girls interact with each other. Kureha and I had a lot of fun playing GGO together, but it now just hit me that spending time with another girl would've been really good for her.

But, that brought to mind two questions: Does this mean I should probably find a guy I can hang out with too? Or the bigger one, which really stood out to me as I looked at the both of them smiling, "Am I going to end up as a third wheel?" I had muttered it outloud.

I wasn't sure if Sinon or Kureha had heard exactly what I said. But Kureha did look back at me before reaching to grab my hand with a big smile on her face. She grabbed Sinon's hand as well, and we marched off to the bar. Side by Side by Side.

It seemed that we had a new addition to our little group, and, I realized that it couldn't have made me happier.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Lock n' Load

"DBG, huh?" Sinon kicked her feet up onto the table. "That's going to be pretty intense, even if you guys can handle yourselves. Have you been playing long?"

"I've been playing for two, almost three months." I told Sinon, leaning against the wall. My head was right next to the dart board Kureha and I were using earlier.

"I've been playing since September." Kureha recalled, upside down in a chair. She kicked her feet up with rythym.

Sinon looked towards Kureha, "So, you've been playing about as long as I have. But, I'm surprised the two of you have such synergy."

"Well, Kureha is the one that invited me to GGO." I materialized one of my G34s in my hand and began twirling it about.

"Really?" Sinon raised her eyebrows. "I know it's bad ettiquette, but, do you two…?"

"Well, we used to be friends a long time ago, but, life happened. It was two months ago when we go back in touch," I hit the mag release on the pistol, before snapping the magazine back in. I continued to absent-mindedly play with the gun as a recalled what happened.

When I snapped back into reality, somehow I got the impression that Sinon hadn't exactly had her question answered, while Kureha was covering her face.

"Did… I miss something?" Suddenly, I felt kind of dumb, since something had obviously gone over my head.

Sinon laughed, "You know, actually, no you didn't. That answers my question perfectly." She stood up and headed over to Kureha. She kneeled down and whispered something into her ear.

"Jeez!" Kureha shouted as she kicked her feet into the air franctically. She flipped herself to more or less properly sit herself in the chair, "Well, then, how about you Sinon?"

"Me?" Sinon looked rather proud of herself having put Kureha into a fit, but now she glanced upwards, thinking, "Well, I suppose there is one person that comes to mind. But, really, I don't know. I don't think I'm cut out for that kind of thing, right now."

I squinted at the two of them, "I'm lost."

Sinon waved me off along with some laughter, "Don't worry, it's just girl talk." She walked up to me as I heard Kureha groan. "Hm… A Glock, just like I thought."

I glanced at the gun in my hand, "Yeah, a 34. I've had it since I started playing."

"Wait a second. But, you use a photon sword as well?" She raised her eyebrows as something clicked in her head, "You really are something, aren't you?"

I laughed, "Is it really that big of a deal?"

"Well, there's a reason no one runs a set up like that," Sinon crossed her arms.

"Oh, trust me," Kureha began. "That's what I said earlier, and then next thing I know, we've taken out a 6 man squad."

"Wait, you mean, today was your first time using a photon sword?" Sinon seemed caught off guard.

"Yep, best investment I've made so far!" I grinned at her, "…Probably!"

Sinon looked back to Kureha, "Yeah, I definitely think you lucked out with this one."

"Sinon!" Kureha's face suddenly got very red. I had never really seen her act quite this way before.

Sinon looked back to me, "And as for you, I think you can make another, better investment today."

"I can?" I right back at her, curious, but slightly concerned as to what she was going to offer.

"At the end of the day, most live-ammo guns in GGO act almost the same to their real life counterparts, but, guns with higher stats requirements prove to exaggerate the strengths of their real life counterparts way more." Sinon explained.

"Really? That sounds kind of… broken. Is having high Strength and DEX, really that important then?" Kureha asked her.

"Well, numbers like raw damage or firerate can't be changed without mods to the weapon, however," Sinon materialized her rifle. "This is my Hecate. My PGM Ratio Ultima Hecate II, to be exact. It's an antimaterial rifle, but I can reliably use it as a sniper rifle."

"I kind of figured the two we're similar, just antimaterial rifles used massive caliber bullets." I told her.

"That's not entirely wrong. Both are designed to achieve their jobs from similar ranges, but, the issue is they have different jobs. Snipers are antipersonel, Antimaterial rifles… are, well, just as the name says. They're meant for eliminating objects, not people. Vehicles, structures, bombs. As a result, they don't require pinpoint accuracy. A car is much larger than someone's heart, obviously." She explained.

"But, because the weapon has high requirements, the game makes it more accurate than it really it is!" Kureha plopped her fist onto her palm.

"There you go." Sinon dematerialized her rifle. "Of course, accuracy isn't the only thing that can be different. Weapon handling, range, clip size."

"So, by finding better pistols, I give myself an edge," I concluded.

"A relatively small one. It's all 'quality of life' kind of stuff, but, yes, an edge all the same." Sinon clarified.

"So, maybe it's about time for an upgrade," I glanced over my pistol.

"It can only help. I know a good place that sells rare weapons too!" Sinon smiled.

With confirmation between Kureha and I, we soon exited the bar to go out to this store Sinon reccomended. She had taken us to a spot in Glocken that Kureha and I had barely ever gone through. It was even more dark and gritty than the rest of the city, and that was quite the statement.

I couldn't really see a shop running out of here. The walkways were cramped, almost like we were in alleyways. The insides of every building we saw were dimly lit and there wasn't really telling what was what.

"Ah, this is the place!" Sinon turned into one of the dark buildings.

"How can you even tell?" Kureha muttered as we followed in after Sinon.

"Hey, Sinon!" The player who seemed to manage the shop shouted at her, "Have you changed your mind and decided to sell me that French beauty?"

"You can have Hecate in your dreams, Daitou." Sinon glanced over at him.

"17 million credits, Sinon! No, 18, even!" He slammed his hands on his counter.

Sinon prompty responded by hitting him on the head. "No, but, I do have customers for you. So, try not to scare them off, will you?" She sighed.

"Alright, alright fair enough." He waved her off. "But, one day I'll give you a price you can't say no to."

"I'm sure you will." Sinon replied plainly. "So, do you have anything in the realm of pistols?"

"Pistols, huh? Not many people come in here asking for that… I definitely have some stuff but…" He trailed off, lost in thought. "Well, I'm pretty sure everything I got is in the back, near the SMGs."

"You hear that, Alexan? Go and have a field day." Sinon looked back to me.

I nodded as I went to go and take a look at my options. I could still hear them even as I moved to the back of the store.

"And what's this lady lookin' for?" Daitou asked about Kureha.

"Me?" Kureha seemed to be caught off guard. "Well, I just came here with him and Sinon because…" She paused. "Well, I just did."

"Hm," I could hear the curiousity in Daitou's voice. "Well, feel free to look around then."

Meanwhile, I found the not so big assortment of pistols, at least compared to everything else that was available. Luckily for me, most of the guns could be found in either pairs or trios, so I wouldn't have to result to mix-matching. I saw Desert Eagles, 1911s from various brands, impressive looking revolvers. There were also, less impressive looking guns, that I'd never heard of. They looked ancient, like they were from really old American movies.

On top of that all, most of them were took larger calibers than I wanted. As I looked more, I spotted something that seemed awfully, tactile appearing. Every spot that you'd reasonable be touching a gun seemed to have some feature that would help you grip it. It seemed more aggressive than my glocks, while having a slightly more organic look and being a little bit more compact.

"A VP9?" I stared at the weapon. "Yes, almost definitely, it's a 9mm, too."

"Ah, so you like 9mm pistols?" Sinon said from behind me. I looked back towards her. "I at least would expect you to rock something heavier. But, I guess you've proven you don't exactly go with anyone's expectations today." She placed a hand on her hip.

"I can work with anything as far as pistols go, except maybe machine pistols," I told her looking back to the guns. "But, my 9mm always felt the best to me. So, I think I should stick with that caliber."

"Mind me asking what your stats are?" Sinon look curiously over my shoulder.

"Well, AGI is my highest, followed by DEX, then STR. I don't really dedicate much to the rest."

"So, Photon Sword/Pistol user with a Sniper's stat sheet? That's… That sounds so dumb." Sinon said, rather matter of fact like.

"Thanks," I said rather sarcastically.

"On paper, at least. But, it really makes sense when you think about how every stat works, even if it is a bit niche." Sinon told me.

I looked back to her, "Really? I wouldn't expect anyone to say that about an off meta build." Any teammate wouldn't waste a second harassing someone over a less than "optimal" build and any enemy would go out of their way to abuse someone with such a build in any other game.

"I don't think doing something a certain way, determines your skill, or even your strength. It's a matter of how you apply everything you have in a way that you can actually use it." Sinon seemed to speak from the heart.

"So, if I had to guess," I looked up and down at Sinon, imagining her carrying her Hecate. "You don't have a normal Sniper build?"

"I prioritized STR over DEX, so, as a result, my stat sheet didn't really look like a sniper's, but once I found Hecate, I knew I found the missing link." She always seemed to speak fondly of her rifle.

I didn't really think about it, but while Sniper rifles had high DEX requirements, it would only make sense for a antimaterial rifle to lean towards STR instead, wouldn't it?

Sinon continued, "So, I can see where you're going, I think. As long as you play right, the only situation you'd have an issue with is full auto fire from mid range." She seemed to recall our earlier skirmish. "And since you can apparently defect bullets with a photon sword, even that doesn't seem to be that problematic for you."

"To be honest, I was totally winging that earlier."

Sinon laughed, "I figured that by now. Still makes for one kind of acheivement, though."

"Alexan? Did you find something?" Kureha walked down to us.

Sinon left my side as I looked back towards Kureha, "Yeah. Have you found anything interesting?" I asked her.

"Oh, I haven't really looked around." She rubbed the back of her head, "So, what did you find?"

I picked up two VP9s, "These."

"Hm, they certainly look very…. dextrous!" Kureha told me. Funnily enough, upon inspecting the guns, they had decently high DEX requirements.

I couldn't help but chuckle, "Yeah, I like them." I walked back to Daitou, taking the long way back to him. We saw all of the other guns that the store had to offer.

"Wait, a P90?!" I heard Kureha exclaim. It seemed it was time for her to have a field day. She listed off more guns than I could count, or care to remember. Until she found on that her heart settled on, "An MP7!" Kureha got all grabby hands on it. Kind of like a pervert around a schoolgirl…

Suddenly, she regained her composure. "Well, I think it will definitely be a step up from my Uzi, so…" She cleared her throat.

"I didn't expect you to make a face like that, Kureha." Sinon laughed as Kureha scoffed. "Don't worry, I know how it is. It's only natural for you to enjoy new things like this."

Though, I didn't quite get it. I hardly had a reaction that was in anyway reminiscent to Kureha's. Our duo had only just become a trio, yet I felt like these two already had their own line of communication.

Kureha sighed with relief, "Yeah…" She laughed half-heartedly.

"Well, I'll head over and pay for these." I walked off to the counter. I hadn't bothered looking back, but I heard Kureha make a variety of noises, and muttered things I couldn't quite make out.

"Ah, two of these, huh?" Daitou looked up and down at me, "Alright then. For the both of them, that'll be... 450 for both." He smirked at me. "Most people don't come in here lookin' for pistols of all things, and Sinon brought you. So, I think that's a pretty good deal."

It was expensive if it were any run of the mill gun you could pick up at a NPC store, but these had high stat requirements compared to even the "better" guns those stores had in stock. Along with the fact that they were probably rare drops, chances are he was being genuine.

He opened up the shop window and tapped both of the guns I brought causing them to appear. I put in 450 thousand credits.

"Sinon calls you a 'meta-breaker'," Daitou told me. "I kind of hope she's right, it'd be a real kicker to see everyone running around with short range guns and photon swords." He and I accepted the trade. "Good luck in DBG, kid."

"Heh," I took hold once more of my now newly aquired pistols. "I'll be sure to. Maybe I'll even be able to find you more inventory."

"A fresh new weapon in my stock just after the update, eh?" Daitou grinned. "That doesn't sound half bad to me. Alright, kid. I'm counting on you."

I laughed, "No problem."

Then I heard breathing, very heavy breathing. Before I could even look over to see what it was about, a large… thing?… landed on the trade counter. This seemed to have been Kureha's item of choice. Her dazzled eyes and flushed face implied as much, along with that breathing.

I had no idea how I felt seeing Kureha in that state.

"A launcher!" Daitou rubbed his chin. "I never would've taken you for for that kind of girl!" His grin grew larger. "You've really brought me quite the pair, Sinon." Daitou looked over the weapon and tapped on it. "Ah yes, an AT4, good choice. A MP7 along with that…" He mauled over it for second. "That'll run you about 1.25 mil." He nodded to himself.

"That's a steep price," Kureha stared intently at the launcher. There was actually a short silence. I looked over to Sinon, seeing her look at Kureha with curiousity.

Kureha slammed her hand on the counter, "I'll take it!" She followed with a motion that only could've been her accepting the trade. Sinon let out a whistle. Kureha doted on her new launcher as if it were a small child or something, "Yes! Destructive force with precision. I could take out anything I set my sights on."

"I don't quite get it, " I began. "But, honestly, I could get used to this side of you, Kureha," I smiled at her.

Suddenly Kureha's face went completely red, before placing both of them in her inventory.

I patted Kureha's head, laughing softly, "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone."

"Jeez…" Was all Kureha could muster. Though, she somehow seemed relieved.

"I'm almost jealous," Sinon said queitly. When I looked back to her, there was a soft smile on her face. "But, now, you guys should be ready for DBG."

"Will you be in DBG too, Sinon?" Kureha looked over to Sinon.

"I actually..." Sinon paused for a moment. Something told me she was going to say no, for one reason or another, but, instead she said, "If you guys don't mind me tagging along, though, I'll have to see if I can get out of doing something in real life." Sinon told us. She smiled, seeming as if she had come to some kind of resolution.

"I'm glad to hear it," Kureha grinned widely.

"If it wasn't for you two, I probably would've just cut my losses and hope there would be another time," Sinon told us. "But, now, you two got me pretty excited."

"Well then, I'll have to do my best to do my best for you then, won't I?" I laughed sofly.

"I'm counting on it!" Sinon placed a hand on her hip.

Kureha advanced towards Sinon slightly, brushing against me in the process, "I will too!"

"Right, right," Sinon suddenly glanced elsewhere, seeming to remember something. "Well, I have to go in a bit. So we'll pick this up another time?"

"Gotcha!" Kureha looked over to me, "I still have some time before I go too, do you want to head back out into the field?"

"Yeah, it would be good to get a feel for new stuff." I gestured.

"Well, then in the meantime, you how about you both add me?" Sinon suggested.

"Sounds like a plan." I told her.

"Of course!" Kureha exclaimed.

Sinon flung two friend requests our way, and of course, we accepted.

"Alright, alright, kids," Daitou began. "You're making my shop look like a cafe or something with all your talk."

"Okay, Daitou, I get the hint." Sinon waved Kureha and I off, "I'll catch you guys later. See you." Then she logged off.

"Well then," I looked over to Kureha, "Ready to head back out, partner?"

"Right!" Kureha, who had been making bodily contact with me all of this time grabbed me by the arm and pulled me forward.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5: DBG, Start!

Kureha and I stood in the Governer's Office, which was the highest point in all of SBC Glocken, and where all players went to in order to take care of any business related to their accounts. This included signing up for events, and the place was slowly becoming crowded as the start of DBG loomed closer and closer.

Kureha, seemed to be nervous, looking about, "Sinon's not here yet. At this rate she won't be able to make it." Her concern wasn't only shown through body language, but it could be seen in her eyes as well.

"Well, she did say she would've had to clear something from her schedule today, if I recall." I explained. "I guess she just couldn't get out of it."

"Yeah, that's true, isn't it?" Kureha sighed.

I placed my hand on her shoulder, "We did originally think it was going to be the two of us. I think we'll be fine." I smiled at her.

Kureha became noticeably less fidgety. She took a deep breath and smacked both of her cheeks, "We will be fine! I'm gonna find a drop that Sinon will drool over too!"

I laughed softly, "Yeah, that's the Kureha I know."

She looked over to me wearing a smile of her own, until suddenly her expression turned into one of surprise, "Wait, is that?…" She trailed off. She moved slightly towards the direction she face, ending up right in front of me.

"Do you see Sinon?" I asked, as I looked in the same direction. Yet, I couldn't see her.

"No, but, I see Itsuki," She said, her voice coated with awe.

"Itsuki?" It was a name that I had heard here and there, but, I actually never bothered to find out exactly who they were.

"He's one of the game's best players, he consistently holds a spot in the top 10 on the leaderboards. And the only person to consistently stay above him is Xeceed himself." Kureha explained to me.

I raised my eyebrows. Even I knew who Xeceed was, most of the time on the leaderboards, he was holding the number one spot and basically decided whatever the meta was for the game. Upon thinking about that, this Itsuki was never more a than a few spots below him at most.

"Wait… is he walking here?" Kureha suddenly sounded nervous again. "He's walking this way. He's looking at us!"

That was a turn I hadn't expected at all, but, someone in a leather brown and white coat was making their way to us. He had partially slicked back, dull brown hair with narrow red eyes. He gave off the the stereotypical "bishi" vibes.

His eyes definitely did seem set on something, and honestly, it seemed that Kureha was right. Upon looking just a little bit longer, I noticed someone was behind Itsuki. They wore a white uniform with gold trim. They had blue hair and wore glasses.

"Would you happen to know who the other guy is?" I asked Kureha.

"I… don't know? I think they know each other." Once more she moved a bit, into my direction this time, causing her to make light contact with me.

"Would you two happen to be participating in DBG?" Itsuki asked us. It hadn't fully set in for me who Itsuki really was, but, even I couldn't help but ask myself what a top tier player was doing asking if Kureha and I of all people were joining.

"Well, yeah…" Kureha suddenly leaned into me more.

"Ah, Kureha, if I recall correctly," He looked right at her, placing his hand on his hip.

"Yes, but, how do you know who I am?" She was surprised, and honestly, so was I. Instinctively, my hand returned to her shoulder.

"I've got eyes and ears all around, you've definitely made your mark on a few squadrons, so, that makes it easier too," Itsuki explained. "You're one of the more impressive players, from what I can tell."

"Oh, well, thank you…" She said softly. At this point, she seemed baffled.

"Although, I'd be lying if I said I walked over here just for you," Itsuki looked over to me. "You're the 'Silverheart Swordsman', or at least, that's the name you've seem to be given. I don't know what your actual name is."

"Wait, the… 'Silverheart Swordsman'?" I asked him.

"Oh, no one's called you that? They say recently a player with a heart the same color as his hair has been giving PKers a hard time recently. He spares anyone that gives up, or doesn't want to fight in general. But, if they have the balls to fight without backing down, he cuts them down."

"Silver?…" Kureha repeated.

"It's a little abstract isn't it? But, if you treat silver poorly, all you'll be left with is something ugly. However, if you treat it well, some would even argue it looks better than gold." Itsuki smiled. "Does that make more sense?"

I hadn't thought of myself in such a way, but my mind when to when we met Sinon. It was because she felt she was better off being our friend that I didn't do anything to her. If she had tried to fight, I would've taken her out like the rest of that squadron, probably.

My eyes met with Itsuki's. I was that scary when I was out for blood, was I?

"I suppose it does… But what makes you so sure I'm them?" I asked him.

"Because they're only seen around with a certain SMG or Rocket user dressed in pink."

He certainly had me there. But, had I really managed to make a name for myself in the matter of a week simply because of a photon blade?

Itsuki laughed softly, "You seem surprised. But, if anything, you're the surprising one."

"My name…" I looked Itsuki in the eyes. "It's Alexan."

"Alexan, huh? An interesting name for an interesting fellow. I can't wait to see what you're gonna pull off here." He smirked. There was a certain look to his eyes, one of excitement, despite his calm demeanor. I suppose it made sense, as the event was going to start soon, but, they fact he gazed upon me so intently made me feel like I was missing something. Was the 'Silverheart Swordsman' actually so noteworthy?

The man that had followed Itsuki spoke, "We're almost out of time. We should get ready."

Itsuki sighed. "Well, I'm sure you won't disappoint. After all, there's a certain fight I would love to see." He turned his back to us.

"A certain fight?" I stepped forward, as I questioned him.

"If I outright told you, I fear it would take the fun out of it. But, I guess, I can say at least this much," Itsuki looked back to me, wearing a smirk once again on his face. "Try not to be surprised against what you'll be up against, Silverheart."

"Well, that's not ominous at all," Kureha muttered. "Although, I'm surprised a top-ranking player like Itsuki went out of his way for us." There was a small pause, "Well I guess, more for you, the way he was talking."

I had noticed while we spoke, but, he was very focused on me. Kureha made it very clear that the thing which made me stand out was the fact I used a photon blade. Perhaps he just wanted to see if I was worth partying up with, and that was simply his introduction? He had made it sound like he was going to be watching me.

"Does he have a squadron?" I asked Kureha.

"Itsuki?" Kureha stood up straight. I had completely forgotten that she was leaning on me, "Yeah, he does actually. It's called Alphard. They're also close to the top, like their leader. They plow through new content pretty fast." She explained to me. "They'll probably be among the first, if not the first, to clear the new dungeons."

"Well, I guess that should be expected," I placed my hand over my chin.

"Did you think that he wanted to invite you?" Kureha looked towards me.

"Maybe," I answered, then, I smiled at her, "But, if the invitation didn't extend to you, I'd probably have to decline."

Kureha stared at me blankly for a moment before smiling in return, "You'd better."

I couldn't help but laugh at her comment, then, a little notice came up at the corner of my vision. Bringing my attention to it, it became larger and went to the middle of my vision.

 _Sinon has come online._

Kureha's eyes grew large and she practically jumped for joy, "She's here!" She rushed out of the Governer's office, now on the look for our friend. Meanwhile, I opened up my friends list and sent her an invite. In the top right corner of my vision, I saw her name appear below mine and Kureha's.

" _Sorry I took so long!"_ Sinon's voice rang in my head as she sent me a Private Message. _"I'm near the Governer's office, I think I see Kureha."_

" _Yeah, she ran off the second she saw you log in,"_ I told her, placing two fingers on my temple. _"We're glad you could make it. Especially Kureha."_ I chuckled thinking how nervous she has seemed earlier, it was an oddly cute display.

" _Alright, I'll be right in!"_

Surely enough, with only moments passing by, Kureha and Sinon entered the building. I waved towards the both of them, so they could meet up with me.

The two of them made their way towards me, through the crowd. Sinon lead, holding Kureha's hand all the way over to me.

"I really did cut it close, didn't I?" Sinon looked around once the reached me.

I glanced towards the time, at the top right of my vision. 5:57PM, it said. DBG was going to start in just three minutes.

"But, you did make it. So, now I'm confident we have this in the bag." I smirked.

Sinon smiled at me, "Right. I think we have a pretty decent comp. As long as we stick to the plan, we'll get pretty far-" Sinon stopped herself, closing her eyes. Her face became more serious, "No, we'll win."

"Right, the three of us can take down anything that's thrown at us!" Kureha joined in.

"I guess that's what these things are all about, huh?" I put my hand out in front of them, showing off a grin of determination as I did so. "Then, we'll do it for the win!"

Sinon and Kureha placed their hands on top of mine, "For the win!"

Just shortly after, a voice came through the loudspeaker, "Alright, it's almost time for Dungeon Battle Grounds!" It was a woman's voice. "Remember, this is a PvE event just as much as it's a PvP event! While the last players standing will be the winners, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try your hand at the chance for some rare, new items!"

I could only imagine what said items would be like. The game had a patch everyone needed to install earlier, and while it did mention that there were countless new items, it was quite vague. Though, it was safe to assume that these items included more than just new weapons or clothes. I tried researching prior, though, any theories didn't really lead anywhere.

"That being said, the Mobs will hunt you down just as the players will! But, unlike players, you can see them on your minimap! Aside from that, the event will follow the standard rules of the game! Anything you can do out in the field, you can do it in DBG! That's it! The team with the most points from PvE and PvP kills after 45 minutes will stand the victor!"

"So, it will basically be like a standard indoor PvP situation the whole time," I thought out loud. I looked over to Sinon, "Will you be okay?"

"A good sniper can snipe in any environment." Sinon smirked. "So, don't worry about me."

I looked over to Kureha, "Try not to blow us up, okay?"

Kureha's eyes widened slowly, realizing the implications of my statement, "Well, maybe I will!" She retorted. Her face was completely flushed.

"I'm kidding," I placed my hand on top of her head. "But, I'm trusting you to blow up everyone else with that new fancy launcher of yours."

Kureha wasn't completely satisfied with just that, it seemed, "I'll make sure you never joke about my skills with launchers again!"

"Oh?" I began rubbing her head, "I know you'll impress me then."

She groaned.

"Alright everyone!" The woman on the loudspeaker spoke once more, " DBG is going to start! And, we're gonna do it in… 5, 4, 3, 2!…"

Then, Kureha, Sinon and I were teleported. We appeared an empty dungeon room. Quickly, the three of us began to gear up. Kureha had her SMG in hand, Sinon with her AMR, and I with my dual pistols.

I expanded my minimap and made it available for the girls to see.

"Chances are, other players are spawned at least a certain distance from us." I noted.

"That is most likely the case, this place is massive," Sinon added. "In game modes like these, people normally camp it out."

"That won't be possible with the mobs through," Kureha grabbed our attention and pointed at a group of red triangles moving through the map. "I'm sure it would be easy to get pinched between two packs of mobs. Or, really, any combination of players and mobs."

"A scenario like that would be horrible, so it'd be best to stay on the move and keep an eye on the minimap." Sinon looked back to the map. She pointed at a different spot at the map, at that very moment we saw a red triangle disappear. "While we don't know exactly where players are, we can use mob behaviour to make up for that a little bit."

"So, then, it would be ideal to have me in the front," I told them. "Sinon in the middle, and Kureha in the back."

"Sounds good to me," Sinon nodded.

"Wouldn't it be better to have Sinon in the back, like we originally planned?" Kureha asked me.

"That's a miscalculation on my part," I gestured to the minimap. "Pathways are very linear, so it's very unlikely for us to end up getting ganked from the side most of the time. If we run into someone in the front, it's more likely they'll be closer than farther from us, so then, I would be the ideal person to deal with them until you and Sinon are in position. Meanwhile, if they're from behind, it's more like they'll be farther, as opposed to closer. Then, you can deal with them with your launcher, while Sinon supports you."

"You used to play a lot of shooters, didn't you?" Sinon asked me.

"Me? I'm pretty sure any shooter that's not GGO, I'm actually really bad at." I told her.

"I have a hard time believing that," Sinon raised her eyebrows.

"Oh no, trust him," Kureha told her. "The only guns he can reliably use are semi-automatic rifles and pistols."

"Is that so?" Sinon looked me over.

"Yeah, but, we should be getting a move on." I picked a direction and moved forward.

The layout definitely gave me the abandoned warehouse vibe, as almost everything was completely made of concrete, and we were bathed in fluorescent light. Any sound that was made would've also made an echo.

"There are mobs up ahead," Sinon told us.

"Our six is clear, are we going to be handling mobs like how we discussed?" Kureha asked me.

"Right, that much hasn't changed," I told them.

We were currently in a corridor between two large rooms in the dungeon. Looking at my minimap, I could see the mobs waiting in the room ahead. Once we were close enough, Sinon dropped to the ground, on standby with her rifle.

There were multiple mechs with varying weapons. We managed to confirm that there were at least eight of them in the room. One Gatling gunner, two snipers, and the rest had either ARs or SMGs.

Aside from them, the room was almost completely empty aside from low concrete barricades sporadically placed throughout the room.

"On my mark," Sinon looked through her scope. She took a deep breath, before firing. The bullet completely took a chunk out of the torso of the one using a Gatling gun. It immediately fell to the ground and dispersed into shards of light.

All of the mobs looked in our direction, as Sinon now had taken aggro from them. However, before any of them could get far, Kureha used her Graviton shot, pulling all of the mid-ranged mobs into the blackhole, and only leaving snipers.

I darted into the room, guns blazing at the closest sniper, fast enough that they wouldn't be able to pin me down. I had taken aim and tried for as many headshots as possible. Surely enough, after just a short while it fell back, dead. I slid behind one of barricades, reloading my guns.

Meanwhile, a round from Kureha's launcher made contact with her Graviton short, causing a large explosion and killing most of the mobs inside. I brought my arm up to cover my face despite being in cover due to the force and heat that came.

Another shot from Sinon came out, going right over my head to take out the second sniper.

"Second target; eliminated." Sinon told us through party comms. I could see her stand up and move her way up to the room. Meanwhile. I pushed myself out from cover, putting away my pistols and unsheathing my photon blade. The remaining gunners began to fire at me, but, anything I wasn't able to dodge, I manged to deflect.

I moved unpredictably side to side and jump onto and from barricades to propel myself until I lunged the sword into one of the two remaining mechs. I skidded across the ground once I landed, using my hand to keep stability.

By then, Kureha and Sinon had entered the room, and manged to gunned down the last mob with their SMGs.

"Easy as cake!" Kureha exlaimed.

"Sadly, it doesn't look like anything special dropped from these guys," Sinon looked through the list of drops she received.

"Same here," I also gave a quick look. "No worries, I'm sure there'll be plenty more chances for good gear."

"I heard gunshots this way! All of the mobs here are down too!" An unfamiliar voice echoed from ahead. "I think this is our chance!"

"Crap," I muttered.

"Quick, hide!" Sinon pushed herself against the wall, right beside the doorway from the direction the voices came. I ended up doing the same on the opposite side, while Kureha took cover behind one of the barricades.

It didn't take much time for them to sound closer, it was apparent they were rushing their way to our location.

"I'll make them focus on me," Kureha spoke softly through comms. "In the instant all of their attention is on me, try to take them all out."

"We don't even know how many there are," Sinon said.

"Judging from just their voices, there are at least three, but, it's not unlikely there are more," I reiterated.

"They're getting closer, I don't think we have any other options, really." Kureha retorted.

"Alright, Sinon, the moment you see someone, blow them away with Hecate." I told her.

"And you?" Sinon glanced over to me.

"I'll take them head on," I showed her the hilt of my photon blade.

"Alright, one of you, give me a signal the moment they're at the doorway." Kureha instructed.

Sinon and I waited, dead silent, as the voices of the other party grew closer and closer. We both intently stored at the doorway until finally. We saw a foot enter the room.

Almost simultaneously, we gave Kureha the go, "Now!"

She popped out from behind cover and just as expected, the enemy party directed their attention completely at her.

Instantly, the one who had stepped into the room first, literally had his legs blown off by Sinon's Hecate, causing him to fall over beside the small crater made by the round.

I unsheathed my photon blade dashed into the corridor, I wildly swung my blade in an uppercut, nearly cutting another one of them in half. In that instant, I saw that there were only two others to deal with.

I slid down onto the ground, to avoid any fire, and slash at the legs of the third, dismembering him as well. I quickly pulled out my pistol, in order to dump a clip into the last one in their party, however, in his panic he sent a slug from his shotgun into me.

Naturally, being shot even with heavier bullets was never particularly painful, but the shock of having your health go from 100 to 30 percent was something I doubt anyone got used to. I gasped suddenly, unable to fire.

I heard my teammates call out my name, and watched as the last one was gunned down before he could finished pumping his shotgun. I let out a sigh of relief sitting up, as Sinon and Kureha finished off the two who could no longer get up to walk.

Kureha knelt down beside me, "Are you okay?" She looked at me with concern.

I materialized a first-aid kit from my inventory. I stuck the pen looking syringe into my arm until I finally hit max HP, "I'll be fine." I told her. Although, I could see from the look on her face that didn't make her feel any better. I smiled at her, "It's only natural this happens to me at least sometimes with my playstyle."

"We completely wiped them in a 3v4," Sinon said. "We did well, really well, Kureha. That's because of your call."

"I'd just feel bad if you got stuck watching us when the event had just started," She stood up. "…Because of my call."

"Then you'll need to try harder to get me killed," I looked up at her with a cheeky grin.

"Geez," She held her hand out to me. I grabbed it and pulled myself up.

"Alright, let's move forward," I picked up my photon blade and sheathed it before putting it on my side. I also picked up my pistol from the ground and drew out my other one.

"Not too far ahead, there's a large room with only one mob, it might be some kind of boss," Sinon told us, as she looked over the minimap.

She expanded it, allowing for all of us to see it.

"It's pretty straight forward from here. I doubt any players are in that area, at least, anyone on this side of the dungeon." She explained.

"Well, then, I guess that's our next stop," I told them. Whether it was something worth keeping or worth something, it was going to be worth. Without a doubt, a boss had just that kind of drop. "Don't let your guard down."

"Says the only one who's been shot so far," Kureha stated.

"Ah-" I didn't really have a retort to that.

"I'm teasing," She smiled at me. "I'll be on my toes."

"Same here," Sinon began walking, and patted me on the back as she passed me by. "C'mon, we don't want to be sitting ducks."

I nodded, and we ventured our way through the dungeon, making our way to what we believed to be a boss room. The corridor to the room had a turn, where you'd only need to walk a few feet afterwards to actually enter it. However, once we made that turn, standing between us and the door way was a familiar and, at that very moment, a very intimidating face.

Itsuki turned our way, looking us over.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Clash of Fate

It was a complete standoff, my group of three taking aim at Itsuki's group of five. As things stood, even if Kureha, Sinon, and I played perfectly, we'd still be killed due to the sheer numbers advantage Itsuki had.

"I recommend we simply eliminate them now." One of them said, it was the one we had saw with Itsuki earlier.

"Now, now, Taipon." Itsuki looked to the three of us. "You continue to surprise me, Silverheart—No, Alexan was it?" A small smile creeped onto Itsuki's face. "You even have a Sniper of her status of your side? If you had anything else up your sleeve, I actually would try to avoid you. At least, in terms of combat."

"But, I'm assuming that's not the case, is it?" I asked him.

"Believe it or not," Itsuki lowered his pistol. "It is, actually. I have no intention in killing you so early into the game."

Just as Kureha and I had thought earlier, it seemed that Itsuki wanted to observe us- or, at least me.

"You mean to tell us that you're just going to let us pass?" Sinon remained on guard.

"Now, now, Sinon." Itsuki shook his head. "Although, I am the type that would love to see those weaker than myself squirm in situations like these…" He smirked, before laughing softly. "Just kidding." Itsuki looked towards either side of himself. "Guys, lower your weapons."

They listened to him, and in turn so did we, although, it was safe to say we were all still ready to aim within a moment's notice.

"So, then, what do you want?" I stepped forward.

"I simply want to see what you have in store, what the three of you… have in store." He explained. "I can't watch you if you're all dead, now can I?"

"So, you really will let us go?" Kureha asked this time. It seemed like he really wasn't going to answer the question.

Until he said, "I will, actually. On the condition that you beat the boss in the room behind me."

Taipon looked over to Itsuki, bewildered, "You would just toss away a potentially valuable drop?"

"I'm bored. I don't feel like fighting a boss mob either," Itsuki informed his teammate. "If it's truly something I, or anyone else here wants, I'll simply take responsibility and buy it off them, if they're willing to sell it." He spoke fluently and nonchalantly, it was hard to convince myself that he was lying.

"...You… want to watch us kill a boss?" Kureha was no longer tense by any means, trying to figure out Itsuki.

"That I do," He nodded. "Somehow, I would find that much more entertaining."

"How do we know you're not lying, and won't just kill us either way?" Sinon continued to be on edge.

Itsuki smirked, "Well, that's the thing." He combed his fingers through his hair, "You don't."

Sinon glanced my way, "Alexan?"

I walked up to Itsuki, until we were face to face. I looked him in the eye as he calmly stared back at me.

"...Alright," I told him. "I'll believe you."

"Truly, you do have a heart made of silver," Itsuki seemed quite satisfied.

"So, you'd better not go out of your way to tarnish it," I told him. I signaled Sinon and Kureha to move with me as I walked past Itsuki's group.

We entered the room and had our first proper glimpse at the boss. The spider like machine slowly rose up before us, standing at least 3 meters highs. There we a Gatling gun attached to its underside, that began to spin in preparation for fire. The "head" of the bot turned and swiveled until a multitude of red glowing LED lit eyes focused on to us.

 _Arachnoid_

"Alexan," Sinon readied her rifle. "Do you actually trust Itsuki?"

"...Normally when players in an open environment establish that they'll let you go, that's usually all there is to it," I raised both of my pistols.

"Even with how strange he was acting?"

"I do." I told Sinon. "He has his motives, and I don't know what they are. But, at this very moment I know he won't try to kill us."

Sinon looked at me for a moment before looking back towards the boss, "Then, I'll trust you, and that game sense of yours."

"Thank you Sinon," My eyes wandered over to Kureha. "Ready?"

She had been glancing back at Itsuki and his party, it was my words that had caught her attention, "They don't really sit right with me." Kureha shook her head. "I guess I'm just…" She trailed off.

"Just?…" I urged her on.

"No, don't worry about it." She told me. "You're right, Itsuki just has some kind of motive watching us- watching you." She readied her SMG. "Let's do this and get out of here."

Sinon took aim at the boss, and in the moment her bullet line appeared on it, the Gatling gun began to spin once more. A round fired from Sinon's Hecate, right into the bot's "face".

The boss whirred loudly, as if it were in pain and stumbled backwards. Kureha and I took this time to empty our clips into the machine, noting that the lights seemed to have been a weak point for it.

In the midst of our gunfire, its Gatling gun began to spin once more as bullet lines flared up in my direction. I could have moved, but, there was nowhere to hide or take cover. In that instance, the only thing that came to mind for me to do was to pull out my photon blade and take it head on.

"Alexan!" Sinon shouted out as another round from her AMR slammed into the boss. It flinched, but, it didn't get stunned like the first time and it kept it's aggro on me.

A torrent of bullets fired out towards me. Blade in hand, I looked at every bullet line. Where they aimed for, when they came up.

I had only spent a little bit more than a week with my sword, but, with every fight, every skirmish, every bullet I had deflected, the amount of gunfire I could mitigate grew and grew. I had yet to try to take on the rate of fire a Gatling gun could provide, but, I needed to be able to handle it. Otherwise, I wouldn't deserve to win DBG, and I would never find out what the one of the best players in all of GGO saw in someone like me.

With great focus, I managed to hit bullet after bullet. I didn't even have to think about it- or rather, I couldn't afford to think about it. There wasn't the time to do so. There was only time to react.

Bullet after bullet, my sword made contact. I was completely in the groove, slashing and spinning my blade with near flawless movement. My body spun and twisted as I did my best, I leaped and flipped to dodge the ones I couldn't block.

Though, the reality was, I wasn't able to block every single bullet that came my way. The fire rate from the gun was too high, and my health bar was being chipped away at.

However, before I could be out in any real danger, an «Explosive Shot» hit the boss, causing it to stop firing. It stumbled about as its attention went to Kureha, who had run in front of me.

"Finish it off, Alexan!" She shouted as she slammed her fist into the ground and activated her «Defense Matrix». As the boss tried to get through Kureha's defenses with its gun I dashed backwards to make distance between her and I. I ran forward immediately after in order to create momentum before using Kureha as stepping stone to fling myself into the air and towards the boss.

With my blade in hand, I stabbed it through the top of it's head. I forced my sword down, all the way until only the hilt was visible. The bot whirred loudly yet again as it stopped firing at Kureha.

Then, with a shot from Sinon the whirs coming from the boss stopped and just a short moment after, it exploded. I was thrown back into the air from the sheer force, although, I was able to land on my feet along with my free hand for stability as I skidded across the ground.

"They're gone," Sinon said. She was already facing the doorway we entered from, aiming her Hecate in that very direction. I realized she was referring to Itsuki and that she was right. There was no sign of him or his group.

I sheathed my photon blade, "So, I guess I was right." Itsuki had no intentions of killing us for the moment.

"What… is this drop?" Kureha asked, as the reward screen popped up.

"Hm?" I opened the reward screen for the boss, and aside from a decent amount of credits there was only one drop I had gotten.

 _ArFA-Sys Security Access Code_

"It's a keycard of some sort," I noted.

"ArFA-Sys..." Sinon seemed to mull over it. "I think that's what some helper NPCs are called."

"Like the ones that act as bulletin boards for quests?" Kureha asked.

"That's weird, why would a boss have something for an ArFA-Sys?" I asked.

"Maybe it's more like a token, that we can submit after DBG is over," Sinon closed out her reward menu.

"I suppose that would make the most amount of sense," Kureha spoke quietly as she did the same. She then opened up her minimap, expanding it for everyone to see. "It looks like one of the paths ahead lead to a dead end."

The hallway that took us forward forked off into two paths, one that lead deeper into the dungeons and even more pathways, and another that lead to a seemingly empty room, as no monsters were indicated to be inside it.

"Then, we take that one," I told them.

"You want to go into a dead end?" Sinon asked me. "There's a possibility there's nothing inside of it."

"It is possible, but, it's unlikely that's the case," I retorted. "We're in a PvP Dungeon instance, not a maze or puzzle game." There would be no use for a room that doesn't do anything or not lead anywhere in a setting like the one we were in.

"So, then, there must be loot or something that can give us an edge in that room." Kureha deducted.

"There is also the possibility of a hidden mob or boss in there as well, but, even if that is the case, I do believe that ultimately the purpose of the room is to have some kind of bonus." I explained.

Sinon placed her hand on her chin, "Well then, I think it's fine. But, if there is a possibility of a hidden boss, I'd rather not end up in a pincer attack between it and any players that may be exploring."

Upon looking at the minimap, the other pathway that could be taken didn't guarantee any players headed down the one we picked would be stopped by mobs.

"Don't worry, I have taken precautions for this particular situation!" Kureha told us. As I went to look at her a large disk like object materialized in her hands.

"A land mine?" I assumed.

"Well, close," Kureha told me. "It's an electro-stun mine. A normal mine wouldn't one-shot a player, or even maim them unless they had super low defense. So, I figured holding them in place would be better."

"That's good thinking," Sinon smiled at Kureha.

"Yeah, as far as my preparations went, it was just health kits and stat boosters…" I said, rubbing the back of my head.

"Well, as good as you are, I noticed that you're the type that tends apply only himself, and not necessarily tools that could be at your disposal," Kureha began making her way forward. "But, that's alright. After all, part of my job as your tank is to disrupt the enemy. So, you two are free to pump out all of the damage you want."

We then went forward and helped Kureha plant her mines. As she set them up Sinon kept an eye out for any bodies that may have been approaching us. Luckily, we didn't see any other players even after the traps were set. We made our way to the seemingly empty room.

Upon actually entering the room, we saw there was a super computer with a massive console at the end of it. The floor dipped downwards via stairs, and on either side of the room there were more consoles and what appeared to be servers.

"Well, it certainly looks like something is here..." Sinon said.

I walked forward, all the way up to the computer and began to examine it. A quest marker appeared the moment I made contact with it. The quest itself was extremely vague, with a description that only said "Activate the computer". The quest requirement was the Access code I had just received, but the quest would just give it right back to me after completion.

So, I completed the quest, curious as to what would happen. But, it didn't seem like anything really happened at all. I turned around, and noticed that blue LEDs embedded into the floor had turned on.

"Was that it?..." I muttered.

"Did you find something?" Kureha looked over to me from one of the side consoles.

I began to walk forward, "The computer offers a quest, but, it doesn't seem like it does anything..."

"A quest?" Kureha's gaze fell on the computer, curiosity sparking.

"All it says is that it-" I was interrupted by a loud whirring sound, and then with a bright flash of light I was suddenly in a completely different room and I was without Kureha or Sinon.

"Crap," I cursed under my breath. "Of course."

"Alexan?" Kureha's voice rang in my head, panicked.

"Don't worry," I placed my index and middle finger on my temple. "I think it takes us to a secret room."

With that assumption in mind, I moved forward. I had spawned in a small corridor that lead into a much larger room, which comprised of two levels and I was on the higher of the two. The second floor had a large opening the allowed me to see everything on the first Much like the room before, it was littered with computers and consoles. The floors were also tiled with a brass colored metal.

The only thing keeping me from the first floor was railing to keep anyone from falling off. I simply hopped over, said railing and landed on the ground with a loud clack that echoed throughout the room. I made my way to what seemed like a large pod at the back center of the room.

There, I received another quest. This one was also remarkably vague, the only description being given to me was "Open the chamber." This also required my Access Code, but this time I was not going to get it back.

"I think I found our loot," I told Kureha.

"Really? Sinon and I will be right there!" She assured me.

I proceeded to complete the quest, which caused the pod to be lifted up to almost a 90 degree angle. The thick blue glass which covered was pulled upward at the point of a hinge and revealed what was inside.

To my surprise, it was a person. At least, that's what I thought it was at first, but the clothes they were wearing were similar to what ArFA-Sys units wore. It was a female model with a snow-white hair, and a white diamond-shaped marking over her left eye.

She opened her eyes for just a moment, revealing themselves to be vibrant cerulean before they closed once more, and she literally fell into my arms.

"Eh? Wait, really?!" I began to panic. Did I really just loot an NPC? How was I going to continue through out the rest of DBG with her?

 _You have received_ _«_ _Type-X_ _AFAS_ _-00_ _»_ _._

This must've been her item code, which only confirmed my thoughts. I literally owned an NPC.

I carefully set her down, and just as I was about to send Kureha another message, I heard a gunshot. It missed me and ended up bouncing off the floor just inches away from me. I glanced backwards, only to see someone in black charging at me.

To my surprise, the weapon of choice they had was a blue photon blade. In the heat of the moment, I pulled out my own and charged right back at them. We both swung upwards, our blades clashing with each other.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Two Blades

Sparks flew as our blades slipped past each other, and in that moment, I clearly saw my opponents face. He had blue eyes that were piercing, and unexpectedly serious along with short black hair. Upon looking at him, it suddenly didn't even feel like I was playing a game anymore, almost as if I were being sucked into the world that was GGO.

Initially, he had actually seemed to have been surprised with my counterattack, but he quickly regained his composure. As our blades left contact with each other, we stepped to circle each other. He began a downward swing, this time using both arms. I responded in kind, swinging upwards with both of my own in order to parry his blow. I had only barely made it in time to block it.

"You're fast!..." I cursed under my breath as our blades made contact yet again. This time, there was massive shock to my arms as they almost gave way enough for him to cut through me regardless. If my STR was any lower, that most likely would've been the case. His STR parameters far exceeded my own, which was very apparent to me when the blow had also pushed me off my feet, causing me to tumble across the floor.

However, I quickly recovered, ending up on one knee, looking towards him as he charged at me yet again. I pushed forward, swinging my sword from the side at just the right moment. He went for my opening, however, in that instant I was able to see, despite his speed and absurd strength, that I was faster.

With insane reflex and control, the path of his strike changed completely, in order to parry my attack. Yet again, our eyes met, and the intensity, the fire that was in those eyes only seemed to become more prominent.

We continued to the exchange blows, and every clash caused my arm to almost go numb. However, my upper hand in speed, although slight, was just enough for me to keep him pressured.

In the midst of our fighting I could hear gunshots on the second floor, a full on gunfight, it sounded like.

Kureha's voice spoke in my mind once more, "Alexan, we're here, but there are three people up here! We're holding our own, but, we won't be able to take them down any time soon."

I clashed blades with my opponent one more time, "Just hold out!" I told her. "I'll try to finish up down here as soon as possible!"

For the first time, my opponent in black spoke, "So then, that must be your party up there as well."

"So, what if they are?" I asked him, our arms trembling in the midst of our clash.

"Then, to be better safe than sorry, I'm going to have to take you out," He smirked at me. "I hope there aren't any hard feelings though, after all, I would like to get to know a fellow photon blade user in this world of guns."

"I'm flattered, but, if you think it's going to be that easy, you're sorely mistaken," I told him.

Our clash broke, and in that moment, the way he moved changed dramatically. He moved with even more control and speed, as if he were making movements he had practiced a thousand times over. I leaped backwards, dodging what seemed like a simple side to side slash. But I was sure if I hadn't dodged it, and tried to take it head on, it wouldn't have end well.

He then advanced forward, swinging yet again. This time, I managed to parry his attack without much issue, but, he quickly spun around, moving towards my side and aimed to strike there.

All of his movements now struck me with Deja vu, as if I had seen them before, as if they were skills. GGO didn't have a skill system for swords, and neither did ALO, yet, I already knew what his movements were.

I yet again parried his strike. Those particular set of actions repeated themselves two more times, matching up with my expectations. If I hadn't already somehow known what he was going to do, I wouldn't have survived it.

He leaped backwards, as he seemed particularly high on guard. He managed to make considerable distance between us only to close it with a single leap forward. He lunged his sword forward, as he came at me with ludicrous speed.

At that moment, I realized there was only one place I could've recognized these movements from. With barely just the right timing, I knocked his sword off the mark with my own, and in the instant we glanced at each other, I blurted out exactly what he just did.

"«Vorpal Strike»..."

His eyes widened as he passed by me. We looked back to each other once he had found his footing.

"Could it be, that you?..." He looked at me in disbelief. "That would explain a lot..."

I took a stance, "I haven't seen those in a long time, but, they're not going to work on me."

"I see," He also assumed a stance, "So I need to win this with my own ability-"

Suddenly, the ArFA-Sys had come between him and I. Taking a stance to defend me. It was odd, not only because it was an AI, but because she was probably no taller than 145 centimeters.

He looked at it in disbelief before he sighed. He placed a finger to his temple before I heard him say, "Hold your fire, there's no reason in fighting anymore."

That statement completely threw me off, "No point?..." I asked him.

"It seems that AI has already been registered to you," He told me. "That's what I was here for, but, it seems like there isn't much point now."

I looked at the AI in front of me, intent on protecting me.

"Papa!" I heard a voice call out. "Papa!" When I looked in the direction of where the voice came from, I saw a little girl hop off from the railing down to us.

"Alexan?" Kureha's voice rang in my head again. "What's going on?"

"They… don't want to fight anymore," I told Kureha as the little girl ran to the person I had just been fighting.

"It's alright Yui," He told her. "They have it, fair and square."

Yui looked over to the ArFA-Sys and I. It really looked like a little kid, dark hair and dark eyes. My AI had seemed to drop its guard, looking back at her.

"It's an ArFA-Sys unit, Papa," Yui said. "It's nothing particularly special, or rather, nothing that I cannot mimic." She approached the two of us and took a hold of the AI's hand.

"Type-X." She said in monotone. "I've adjusted my own rights and privileges to align with such an Arfa-Sys."

I stared at the little girl. "...You've what?"

"Oh! I apologize, but, I didn't do anything to your ArFA-Sys, but, because of her, I can now be of greater assistance to my papa!" She smiled brightly.

My AI looked back to me, looking at me with her bright blue, innocent eyes. At that moment, she muttered her first words to me.

"Papa?..."

I didn't know about the other guy, but I was way too damn young to be a dad.

"Alexan!" Kureha jumped down the railing.

"Kirito!" Another girl jumped down as well, she hard chestnut colored hair with eyes to match.

I looked over to this Kirito, "That name..." I had heard from somewhere, but, I couldn't put my finger on where.

"Mama!" Yui called out to the girl, as she left my ArFA-Sys' side.

Meanwhile, Kureha had joined me by my side, "Wait..." She looked at my AI. "An ArFA-Sys? We got a whole ArFA-Sys?"

I blinked at her, "We?"

"Yes! Just because you're the one who picked it up doesn't mean I don't have rights to it!" She exclaimed.

Honestly, since it was a helper AI, it wouldn't be the most unreasonable thing to share it.

"You two… share?" She asked the two of us.

"Of course!" Kureha told her. "As of this moment, you are under my care too! Not just his!"

"...Mama." She nodded at Kureha affirmatively.

"Wait… What?" She blinked.

"Alexan is Papa," The AI explained. "So, then, you must be Mama."

Kureha looked over to me lamely, "What did you do to it?"

"Nothing! I didn't do anything weird to it at all!" I assured her.

"...Uh huh." Her eyes pierced through me.

"Actually," Kirito moved over to the three of us, "I think I know why she's saying that. But, Yui can confirm it," He looked over to the two girls that had called out to him. "Asuna! Yui!"

"Asuna..." That name had also sounded familiar to me. Her and Kirito, it was on the tip of my tongue, yet, I couldn't find where those names were from.

"It seems that they're a bit confused about their ArFA-Sys, Yui. Would care to help them out?" Kirito asked her.

"Not that I particularly mind it, but..." Kureha looked back to the AI.

"It appears that Type-X's actually quite similar to myself," Yui explained. Which meant that this little girl was also an AI? If that were the case, she seemed much more capable than what even these Type-X's are capable of. "They are AI that learn, and even have my Mental Health Counseling programming to some extent as well. Perhaps upon hearing me refer to you two as 'Papa' and 'Mama', this one thought it would be appropriate to do the same for these two."

The ArFA-Sys looked towards us, "Does this displease you?"

"Well..." I trailed off.

"...It's honestly, kind of cute." Kureha said. Her face began to turn red, "And I wouldn't mind… Ah- well, uh, nevermind."

Our new companion smiled at us, "Mama. Papa." She tilted her head, "So, what shall I be called?"

"Ah!" Kureha plopped her fist down into her hand. "We have to name her!"

"I'm not particularly good with names on the spot… I believe her item name was AFAS-00?"

"Well that'd be a horrible name," Kureha told me plainly.

Asuna walked up to us, kneeling in front of the AI, "Well, zero is 'rei', right? So, how about Reiko-chan?"

"That is correct," The AI nodded. "It could be interpreted as 'child of zero'." She looked back towards Kureha and I, "Mama, Papa. Do you like 'Reiko'?"

"Oh, I just can't!" Kureha cried out before giving her a hug. "Reiko is a fine name! Rei… Rei-chan!" She nuzzled into the AI- into Reiko. Reiko giggled with joy.

"Mama, that tickles!" She held on to Kureha, enjoying herself.

Kirito laughed, "This is giving me some major flashbacks. It makes me wish ALO was online again already."

At that moment it clicked, I had heard the name Kirito all over ALO forums. The dual wielding swordsman who had given the strongest player, Eugene, a run for his money. When I looked into the name more, I found out he was also the Black Swordsman, the savior of the SAO incident, rivaled only by Asuna, the Lightning Flash.

"You're SAO survivors," I blurted out.

"Ah, so, you've completely figured out our secret with just a fight and our names," Kirito rubbed the back of his head.

"Wait," Asuna looked over to me, "Then, does that mean you…"

"Well, no," I began to explain. "I only played the beta, I managed to find out the situation before I went to log on that day."

"You recalled sword skills you haven't seen in three years?" Kirito raised his eyebrows. "That's really something."

I looked over to Kureha, who seemed to have been beyond lost.

"So, are you two famous or something?" Kureha asked them.

Kirito laughed again, a bit nervously, "Well, I suppose we are, in a sense."

"Kureha!" Sinon cried out, as she was the first person to run down the stairs that happened to be in the room. Flustered and seemingly angry, she hid behind Kureha.

"Sinon?!" Kureha looked to the back of her.

"Wait!" Another voice cried out.

"Ah, right, there was one more, wasn't there?" I wondered out loud.

"Maybe we just got off on the wrong foo—" As a man with red hair, and an outfit to match, came down the stairs as well, he suddenly tripped and fell down them instead.

Asuna looked at him with disappointment, "Klein! Are you harassing this poor girl?"

This 'Klein' suddenly sat up, also now flustered, "No! I was just trying to make conversation!"

"The only thing you seemed to have wanted was my body!" Sinon hissed.

"Jeez, Klein…" Kirito sighed as Asuna leered over the redhead menacingly.

"It wasn't like that!" Klein was in a complete panic, "You just seemed like a really nice girl, so I thought I'd test the waters, that's all!"

"Well, I do believe that was probably your intention, even if your execution sucked," Kirito tried to give him an empathetic smile.

"Kirito!..." Klein whined.

Kirito simply smiled, "Klein's like Asuna and I, he also played SAO." He gestured over to him.

"Is that so?" I looked at the goofy redhead, "I don't recall reading his name anywhere, though."

"Eh?" Klein stood up, jabbing his thumb at his chest, "I'd say I was probably in the top 5 of strongest players! No, actually I would say I was number four!" He exclaimed.

I simply looked at Kirito, who at this point was laughing half-heartedly. "I wonder about that," I looked back towards Klein.

Klein grasped his chest as if he were in pain, "My pride can only take so many hits at a time..."

"Well, as informal as it is, I think we've all been introduced to each other," Kirito stated. "So, Alexan, was it?"

I looked towards Kirito, "That it is."

"As much as part of me wants to continue our fight, I would much rather we didn't," He told me. "In fact, I'd rather we..." He scratched his cheek, "Well..."

"Kirito-kun," Asuna placed her hand on his shoulder.

He sighed before regaining his composure, "Would you guys mind merging parties?"

The thought of joining forces with someone that, to me, was actually somewhat admirable. His group and attitude also seemed a whole lot more approachable than Itsuki's. From first impressions alone, I much rather would've been in a squadron with these guys.

"Can… we do that?" Kureha asked.

"We can," I told her. "We can do anything we can do out in the field, including joining parties, and by proxy, merging parties."

Sinon came out from Kureha's protection, "A party of seven-"

"Eight!" Reiko stood triumphantly.

"Wait… when..." Sinon paused for a moment. "Reiko?…When did this happen?"

"I'm a parent now, Sinon!" Kureha nodded.

"I-" Sinon looked at Reiko, then at Kureha. "You- ...What?"

"She's basically the loot we were looking for, although, she's registered to me, so..."

"And Mama," Reiko confirmed.

"And Kureha," I reiterated.

"I'll just take the time to mull over that later," Sinon pinched the bridge of her nose, while also seeming flustered. "For now, I'll just say, all of your calls have worked out so far. So, if you want to join these guys, I have no problem… On one condition."

"And that is?..." I tilted my head at her.

Sinon pointed at Klein, "He is not to be near me unless I say otherwise."

Klein simply whined again in response.

Kirito and Asuna in the meantime ended up laughing, and we did come to the arrangement of merging our parties. It seemed the it was normally Kirito leading their party, but, apparently Klein wasn't so happy at how Kirito always defaulted to leading them without question. Klein certainly had the more mature appearance of everyone.

"Well then," Asuna gestured to me. "We'll have Alexan be party leader."

Kirito and Klein both seemed caught off guard, although, Klein seemed to be a little bit less accepting, "I was kind of thinking of, y'know, me."

"Well, it's not Kirito, is it?" Asuna questioned.

"And don't worry, he's quite the shot caller," Kureha assured everyone.

"I can't really object," Kirito looked over to me. "You are strong, you proved that much in our fight. Also, this is a really good opportunity to get to know another sword user."

"Kirito-kun is stubborn," Asuna told us. "So much so he didn't even try any guns other than pistols."

"I'm just really bad with guns," I rubbed the back of my head.

"But yet, you seem to surprise me more and more no matter how little time passes," Itsuki's voice echoed throughout the room along with the sound his slow clapping.

I and everyone else glanced up to the second floor, seeing Itsuki and the rest of his group. There were far more people than there was the last time we saw him. Had he been hiding his extra party members?

"That fight was spectacular, although, it's a shame I wasn't able to see a single victor," Itsuki spoke as if he already had a general idea of everything before it even happened. "Silverheart, Black swordsman. Normally, I would probably just go with the flow of my squadron mates. But, today, you've actually gotten me in the mood to play the game."

"Itsuki…" Kirito grinned, although there was a cold sweat on his face. "So, now we have the honor fighting one of the strongest players in all of GGO."

"Maybe we spent a little bit too much time talking here," I noted, also feeling pressured. Just below the minimap, we could see how many enemy teams were remaining, but, it seemed that we had gotten so caught up with each other we failed to notice that there was only one other team remaining.

"And I have the honor of fighting the 'hero' himself," Itsuki replied. "Long ago, I accepted that I would never catch up to you in Aincrad, but, how will you do in the streets of Glocken?"

"Wait, you were also?!..." Kirito seemed surprised.

"Kirito. Alexan. Ready yourselves and your party!" Itsuki cocked the sniper rifle in his hand, and the rest of his party followed suit. Even though our party had more than doubled in size, Itsuki's still outnumbered us, ten to eight.

"Papa, Mama!" Reiko shouted out to us, "Permission to access your inventories?"

"Permission granted!" I told her.

"R-right, use anything you need, Rei-chan!" Kureha said.

"Truly, this will be quite the lively fight!" Itsuki smirked, "Just kidding."

At that moment an announcement went off, "Time's up!" The woman's voice echoed throughout the room. "Any further combat won't award any points! This DBG is now over!" She explained with enthusiasm. "Shortly, every remaining player will be teleported back to the Governor's office!"

Itsuki shrugged, "Honestly, I wouldn't have fought you guys either way," He explained. "But, it was fun entertaining the idea of doing so, especially with the two swordsmen of GGO." He offered us a smile and, before disappearing, said, "Catch you guys later."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Gun Gale Hearts

I stared out into the distance, sitting on the massive platform which the governor's office sat upon and overlooked the entirety of Glocken. I could hear the announcer speak from the inside of the office.

"And finally, inching out Itsuki's team by mere points was Alexan's team!" She shouted. "Congratulations! Everyone's prizes will be sent to them shortly! We hope to see you all at the next DBG!"

I figured I should had been a bit more excited or happy about winning, but, it just felt unimpactful. It wasn't because my team's total had been added to Kirito's at the last second, as I wasn't even sure we were going to win. This feeling of dissatisfaction was rooted in something deeper. Was it that I actually wanted to fight Itsuki?

"I figured you'd be out here," Kirito's voice came from behind me. I looked back to him, and watch as he came closer, until he sat next to me on the ledge. "I kind of wanted to fight him." He said, although, it was almost as if those words weren't quite directed at me.

"Yeah," I looked up at the sky which at the moment was tinted orange. "Itsuki… You don't know him?"

"I can't say I do, honestly." Kirito sounded slightly troubled. "For some reason, I don't often expect other SAO survivors to play VRMMOs." He laughed softly, "I'm pretty surprised that VRMMOs are still a thing in general."

"It is, isn't it?" I thought about it. In modern day, such an incident would likely destroy an entire industry, but, "People still wanted video games around," I told him. "You know how if a Nervegear or an Amusphere is linked to a computer, it can stream to said computer?"

"Of course, that's how most people record gameplay," Kirito told me.

"So, when people figured out that everyone in SAO looked the same as they did in real life they decided to do the same in every other game." I looked at my hand, opening and closing it. "I guess it was kind of like an awareness thing, for everyone caught up in SAO. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but, because of so many gamers and game companies standing up for what they believe in, the Amusphere came into production."

"So it's not uncommon for people's avatars to look just like them..." Kirito reiterated. "So, does that mean…?" He looked over to me.

"That's right," I looked at him. "With some hair dye and hair gel, I would look exactly like this."

"That would explain a few things..." He mumbled to himself. I looked towards him with curiosity. "Ah, don't worry about it." He waved me off before looking up towards the sunset.

"Although, I do wonder..." I looked up at the sky with him, "Why would you want to keep playing these games, despite being trapped in SAO?"

There was a short silence before Kirito answered me, "At first, I actually wasn't very sure I'd ever play a VRMMO ever again." He wore a sad smile on his face. "I actually felt pretty lost, since I had been in a virtual world for so long, and maybe I would've thought it was for the best if it weren't for Asuna."

"What happened?" I looked towards him. I figured he and Asuna were close, considering Yui called them "Papa" and "Mama".

"Well, I can't go into details about the specifics, but, I had been playing Alfhiem because of the situation. At first, it was hard... diving back into the virtual world. It was a complete shock, really. But, I needed to, for her." Kirito clenched his fist as I looked directly over to him. "It was when it was all said and done, I remembered something that Aincrad had taught me." He let his head drop to gaze straight forward, "The things that happen in the virtual world are just as important as the ones that happen in the real world. So, I, Asuna, and our friends, we decided that we should come back into this world- Well, the virtual world."

I looked at him, kind of in amazement. To some small extent, I felt like I could relate to that sentiment. All of the time I had spent with Kureha felt real. If anyone had tried to illegitimatize it, I'd probably curse them out, if not worse. The same went for the time I spent with Sinon, and even the time that I was spending with Kirito, right at that very moment.

"Ah, sorry, I ended up ranting a bit, didn't I?" He offered an apologetic smile.

"No, it's fine…" I assured him. "If anything, I should be sorry, for asking about something like that."

"Well, I don't mind really." He looked forward. "It's probably good, honestly..."

"Good?" That wasn't what I was expecting to hear.

Kirito laughed weakly, "Asuna and the others give me a hard time for not being all that socialable. So, part of the reason why I didn't keep fighting you was because I thought that'd be my best chance to, uh..." He seemed flustered. "Make a friend? Aside from everyone back in SAO, I don't really have any friends."

While at first, it sounded rather sad, it didn't take me long to realize that I didn't have any friends outside of GGO myself. I couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh, "That cut a bit deeper than it should've." I mumbled to myself.

Kirito gave me a confused look before his eyebrows raised, "So then, you're the same?"

A deafening silence fell upon the two of us for what seemed to be forever. I let out a sigh before finally saying, "Yeah, if anything, I might need friends more than you do."

He laughed weakly, "Sorry."

I took a stand, my face breaking into a smile, "Don't be. I'm glad, if anything." Kirito stood up as well, as I went on. "Until Kureha invited me here, I didn't spend much time with anyone because I had moved away from home. So everyday, I would just end up on my own soloing MMOs or watching streams." I took a deep breath. "But, now, I have her and Sinon-" I chuckled thinking about our newest addition, "And Rei. Having our little party grow, would make me all the more happier."

"So, you really do view this world as part of reality." Kirito smiled at me.

"I always have, I think." I grinned back at him.

Kirito held his fist out to me, "Well then, here's to a new friendship."

I bumped my fist into his, "To a new friendship."

We both made our way to the governor's office as the rest of the group had come outside. The two AI girls ran over to their respective "Papas" and clung to us dearly.

"Did you hear Papa?" Reiko looked at me with bright blue eyes, loaded with energy. "You won first place!"

I smiled down at her and began to pet her head, "Yeah, I did hear."

"Mama said we're going to a party!" She exclaimed.

"A party?" I looked up, towards Kureha. She walked over to Kirito and I with Asuna by her side.

"Well," Asuna began, "I figured it'd be better if we could all talk somewhere not as busy."

"Asuna says that she and Kirito share a huge apartment!" Kureha explained. "So, we're going to celebrate our win!"

I looked towards Kirito as he simply just put on an embarrassed smile. In turn, I simply ended up laughing. The eight of us ended up heading down the city, on our way to Kirito and Asuna's apartment. On the way there I noticed Sinon had been hanging at the back of the group and I decided to walk beside her.

"You really don't want to be near Klein, huh?" I asked her.

She looked a me, a bit surprised, before laughing, "No, that's not it. I just..." She looked forward. Kureha and Asuna were chatting up a storm while Rei and Yui ran circles around the whole group. Kirito seemed to be scolding Klein about something. "I… don't know." She glanced downwards.

"Are you okay, Sinon?" I leaned forward a bit, trying to keep eye contact.

"Alexan, you're… really strong, you know that?" Sinon lifted her eyes. "I… want to be strong too."

At first, I had thought that she was talking about in-game strength. To an extent, I believe she was, but, her voice told me that it went deeper than that.

"I don't think I'm particularly all that strong, really," I told her. The look on her face told me that wasn't what she wanted to hear. "But, I am a lot stronger than I used to be, I think."

Sinon looked up to me, "So, how did you get stronger?"

"I think it was Kureha who helped me become strong." I told her.

"Kureha?..."

"Before I played GGO, the days were…. Uneventful, to say the least." I explained to her. "I felt… lost? I didn't really have a direction, or anything like that. But, then she invited me here. And, now, I have someone to be strong for." I was practically thinking outloud. "Yeah, I think that's it. Even though GGO is only a game, I want to be my best for Kureha's sake. I think some of this strength also comes from you, Sinon." I cracked a smile.

"From me?" Sinon seemed genuinely surprised.

"I'm not really strong for any personal reasons, but, I'm strong so that others can lean on me."

At that moment, Sinon stopped walking. I stopped short right after her as a result.

"Do you think I could become strong as well?" She asked quietly.

I turned to face her, holding my hand out to her, "Well, I think you're already pretty strong."

She stared at me blankly for a moment, then suddenly, tears rolled down her cheeks, although her expression remained in a surprised state. I had thought that maybe I had said something wrong, or maybe I had misunderstood exactly what she had been trying to say this entire time.

She began to wipe her tears away, "I'm sorry… Stupid VR makes it so hard not to do this..."

"Sinon-"

"Thank you, Alexan." She smiled at me. It was a type of smile I hadn't seen her wear before. It was a soft, sweet smile that I'd just didn't expect from someone as "cool" as Sinon. "Honestly… That makes a whole lot more sense."

"Anytime… Are… you going to be okay?"

Sinon nodded, "Yeah, I will be. And Alexan… I'm really grateful for you and Kureha." I nodded in return with smile. "Alright, let's go catch up with the others." Sinon took my hand and pulled me towards the rest of the group.

At the moment, I didn't know why Sinon wanted to be strong, but I knew with our huge new party, there was only going to be room for us both to become stronger, and for everyone else to become stronger as well.


	9. Author's Note 1

This concludes part 1 of (probably) 4 for this volume. For the moment, I won't be continuing what I have planned for this piece in particular, but I will be continuing with side stories.

These side stories won't be vital to understanding anything that happens within Fatal Bullet, but rather will just be collection of character moments and stories that will be a simple expansion of my take on the story I love.

So stay tuned for SAOA: Material Edition; Gun Gale Hearts!


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